What cards are currently based on Tulip chip?

[Ted Matsumura]

Yes, this is exactly what we're trying to organize at www.linux-driver.com
(note -- no "s").

The tulip driver with Ethernet NICs are an excellent example of why, for
Ethernet PCI kernal drivers, among other devices, a moderated database based
on PCI vendor ID and product ID and is necessary for complete information
dissemination on both interoperability and performance.

We're attempting to work with both the peripheral vendors (NIC, SCSI, video,
printers, etc), and the linux distributors to ensure everyone has updated
information and that accurate install information is for the end user.

Currently, Donald Becker's tulip driver is up to .91g or so which includes
interoperability and performance support for several of the cost reduced
tulip chips on various low cost PCI 10/100 NICs, including those sold by
Netgear and Linksys.  Unfortunately, no current linux distribution that I'm
aware of has integrated this version yet, and even many current NIC
distribution mediums and websites still offer only support for 2.0.x
kernals.

Some of the vendors products such as the Netgear FA310X have multiple
versions with same model name that will work and be detected by early tulip
drivers in current distributions, though performance (Netgear README file
indicates early versions of tulip driver with early FA310X product may
exhibit lower performance as they are utilizing a "store and forward"
mechanism) may be degraded if the most current driver is not installed.
Therefore they recommend using the latest tulip drivers, even if an
installation auto-detected and configured the NIC fine.

Another source of confusion with the tulip driver and PCI 10/100 Ethernet
NICs is multiple branded product lines by a single vendor.  The Linksys
full-featured PCI 10/100 NICs use a Macronix chipset that works with earlier
tulip drivers.  However, Linksys has a budget line of PCI 10/100 NICs
branded as "Network Everywhere" (they still say Linksys all over the
packaging) with a slightly different version of the Macronix chipset that
requires the latest .91g version of Donald Becker's tulip driver.

I've browsed the printer database referenced below, and there are many
excellent ideas and much organizational work has been put into it.

I look forward for any feedback on database design objectives with our work
on collecting updated information on device drivers.

Thanks,

Ted Matsumura
tedm@tedm.com
www.linux-driver.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Donald Becker [mailto:becker@cesdis1.gsfc.nasa.gov]
> Sent: Friday, January 07, 2000 2:27 PM
> To: Dan Stromberg
> Cc: Ryan Hoegg; 'Kevin M. Myer'; linux-tulip@beowulf.gsfc.nasa.gov;
> tedm@tedm.com
> Subject: Re: What cards are currently based on Tulip chip?
>
>
> On Fri, 7 Jan 2000, Dan Stromberg wrote:
>
> > This information is probably better than nothing, but it is my feeling
> > that such lists get out of date pretty quickly.  It takes an almost
> > obsessive maintainer to keep such a list really useful when done with a
> > traditional approach.
> ...
> > I think it would be really useful if someone set up some kind of website
> > where people could indicate what kind of card they have just purchased
> > and what version(s) of the tulip driver it works with (and perhaps how
> > well, too), if any.  The system would timestamp the entry, and have the
> > option of listing the info chronologically when queried.
>
> This is what is being done with
>    http://www.linux-drivers.com
> My expectation is that this will quickly replace the current pages.
>
> The first stage effort is to get a database running with the PCI chip IDs.
>
> The second stage is to get a database of cards, with a mapping to
> chips and
> drivers along with special implementation notes.  An important
> element will
> be to allow users to enter new cards, and driver writer to approve the
> entries.  You will immediately be able to see the un-vetted
> entries, and the
> driver writer would only have to check/correct the list every week or two.
>
> > Actually, this would almost certainly be useful for more than "just"
> > tulip/macronix cards - it probably could be applied to other net cards,
> > scsi cards, video cards, sound cards - really just about anything you
> > attach to a linux box.
> >
> > Someone has done something like this for printers; IMO, it's a very
> > valuable resource.  It's at
> > http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/pht/printer_list.cgi.
>
> I'll check that out.
>
> Donald Becker
> Scyld Computing Corporation, and
> USRA-CESDIS,   becker@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov
>

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