2.3.51 tulip broken

[Jim Morris]

Bryan Stillwell wrote:

> But doing one big update instead of incremental updates puts a damper on
> how much other people can help out.  Personally I would prefer to have at
> least a few people that are doing development on the driver than just one.
> That way we can all benefit from each persons knowledge.  Maybe a cvs
> repository of the tulip driver would be the answer?  Wouldn't it be better
> if everyone worked on the driver in cvs and then /that/ driver was
> included in the kernel?  I would /really/ like it if my card (LinkSys
> LNE100TX) would work right out of the box without having to install
> drivers from the second floppy or downloading Donald's latest version.
> It would make network installs a heck of a lot easier!  Then I wouldn't
> have to install gcc to compile the driver.

But from the way I see it, Donald has always been willing to work with
anyone that came up with a patch of fix for his drivers.  I see no
reason that ethernet driver cannot proceed as a project in parallel with
the Linux kernel, with the current versions of the ethernet drivers
being pulled into the kernel when it comes time to build a new kernel
release.  There is no difference in how development proceeds.  It all
comes down to who decides what patches go into the ethernet driver in
question - Linus or Donald?

> Isn't something like 95% of the kernel, drivers?

Well, yes and no.  Thinks like filesystem drivers certainly belong in
the kernel.  But I am not convinced that specific hardware device
drivers should be developed as part of the kernel source tree.  I'm not
saying they cannot be shipped with the kernel source - but I don't see
why the primary development of the drivers has to go on in the kernel
tree, and not as a separate development project.

With the the ethernet drivers, for example, there are several source
files that belong with the kernel proper, and then there are the drivers
for individual ethernet cards, which really are modular peices of
software.

> I personally hate installing drivers off a floppy.  It's much easier if it
> just works without having to change something on your system.

I'm not saying a Linux distribution should not include all the latest
and greatest device drivers on the CD-ROM or FTP image.  I'm just saying
that maybe it would be acceptable to have more of a split between
"Linux" itself, the kernel proper, and independent device drivers.

Its sorta like back when I was still running DOS.  I would go get the
latest version of the Crynwyr packet drivers, and install them.  I
didn't have to reinstall DOS each time, or go reinstall my NCSA telnet
or whatever...

In the same way, I should be able to install an
"ethernet-drivers-1.0.0.i386.rpm" on my Redhat box, and get the latest
ethernet drivers onto my system.  If the driver architecture was not
becoming so kernel-dependant in new kernel versions, I would be able to
install this RPM of ethernet driver modules without having to install a
new kernel.

> In otherwords are you saying you would rather have someone different than
> Linus be in charge of keeping track of device drivers?

Maybe so.  If nothing else, I don't think Linus should refuse to put the
latest and greatest version of a specific device driver in, just because
the official maintainer of that peice of software didn't send him
incremental patches.

Its like when I do a development project.  I may make a LOT of changes
from one relesae to the next, and I may or may not commit those changes
to CVS.  When a release is ready though, I commit it all, and apply a
release tag.  At that point, I give the release to QA for testing - and
if QA checks off on it, I cut a release for the customer.  I don't give
QA or the customer all of the incremental changes between released
versions of the program!

In the same manner, you could consider the Linux kernel to be a "user"
of the ethernet drivers.  When a new version of the ethernet drivers is
available, you should be able to drop the new .c and .h file in place,
and build the kernel.

> Donald does great work IMO, but I would really like it if somehow the
> current kernel driver and his driver were joined again and be developed
> jointly.  Maybe setting up cvs on Sourceforge would be the answer?

Good question - I would love to see it too.
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