[tulip] Most ethernets record?

[Ben Greear]

Donald Becker wrote:

> The 346Q (21143 + SYM), as well as the older 346 (21140A) is in our
> testing queue for the Tulip driver.
> We just put a 346Q in an Alpha system this morning to test.
> 
> The only unexpected behavior is one common to all 21143+SYM boards:
> autonegotiation does not complete until the interface is brought up the
> first time.  This is because the driver software must explicitly handle
> some of the autonegotiation timing, and the driver will not register
> timer events unless the interface is open.  To do otherwise risks race
> conditions with the timer code.

So your tulip driver is now known to work correctly for the ZYNX boards
(on Intel too)?  If so, I'll attempt to install your latest driver into
a 2.2.19 kernel and do some testing.  What driver version should I be
looking for?

> > As recent as the 2.2.19 kernel, the D-LINK 4-port cards did not do
> 
> We confirmed that the 2.2.19 and 2.4 kernels are still broken.
> I can't even get driver contact info updated, so I don't accept the
> blame for long-fixed problems in those distributions.

You could be real sneaky and send the patch from a hotmail account
and see if it somehow gets in, especially if it was from garzik999@hotmail.com :)

> > Unfortunately, regardless of the 2.2 functionality, I will have to
> > stay with 2.4 kernel, because it has so many other benefits that
> > I need, but if the driver works in one kernel, maybe we can
> > figure out why it fails in 2.4.
> 
> The 21143 + SYM code is tricky, and the actual requirements are not
> documented.  The only way to figure out the working method is to have a
> large collection of cards, and figure out the lowest common denomiator
> for their interpretation of the Digital "SROM" documentation.

Is the reason the driver (in the kernel, at least) is so unstable after
all these years because the driver tries to run too many different
NICs?  In other words, if it was split into more distinct drivers,
would it be more backwards compatible in the long run?

Also, do you have any idea of when/if your working driver(s) will be
ported to function with the 2.4 kernel?  I'd wrather have them integrated
fully with the kernel, of course, but even if it is something I can
manually patch in, like the 2.2.19 drivers today, then that would be
welcome, and at least then I could ship a working 4-port NIC.

Thanks,
Ben

-- 
Ben Greear <greearb@candelatech.com>          <Ben_Greear@excite.com>
President of Candela Technologies Inc      http://www.candelatech.com
ScryMUD:  http://scry.wanfear.com     http://scry.wanfear.com/~greear