From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 4 03:32:20 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BC4B016A401 for ; Thu, 4 May 2006 03:32:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz) Received: from ezekiel.daleco.biz (southernuniform.com [66.76.92.18]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2C9D343D46 for ; Thu, 4 May 2006 03:32:19 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz) Received: from [192.168.2.2] ([69.27.149.254]) by ezekiel.daleco.biz (8.13.4/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k443WBl7018626; Wed, 3 May 2006 22:32:12 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz) Message-ID: <445975B6.1070508@daleco.biz> Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 22:32:06 -0500 From: Kevin Kinsey User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20060426 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: pauls@utdallas.edu References: <4458C3C0.1050904@utdallas.edu> <200605032335.15040.yuanjue@yuanjue.net> <4458D3EC.2050508@utdallas.edu> <44lktj13sb.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> <4458DADD.4070203@utdallas.edu> <4459369D.7090103@daleco.biz> <7E99957908DFADE24E6FE186@paul-schmehls-powerbook59.local> In-Reply-To: <7E99957908DFADE24E6FE186@paul-schmehls-powerbook59.local> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Problem with Broadcomm NIC - not recognized X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 03:32:20 -0000 pauls@utdallas.edu wrote: > > The really odd thing is, I installed 6.1 RC2 this afternoon, and it > found the NIC and used bge as the driver! Wonder why 6.0 couldn't do that? > > Paul Schmehl (pauls@utdallas.edu) Well, IANAE on driver code. However, somehow or another the coder uses a string of information in his/her source code that gets compiled into the *.ko or kernel or some other object file (like I said, IANAE, so you Real Hackers please go easy on any inaccuracies in the description, pointers accepted, flames >/dev/null? ;-) that helps the system to recognize whether or not it can interface with the hardware. For example: [admin@foobar][/usr/obj/backup/src/sys/GENERIC] # strings *bge* | grep Broad Broadcom BCM5700 Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5701 Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5702 Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5702X Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5703 Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5703X Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5704C Dual Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5704S Dual Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5705 Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5705K Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5705M Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5714C Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5721 Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5750 Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5750M Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5751 Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5751M Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5752 Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5782 Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5788 Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5789 Gigabit Ethernet Broadcom BCM5901 Fast Ethernet Broadcom BCM5901A2 Fast Ethernet Or, read /sys/dev/bge/if_bge.c. My best guess is that these variations in the Broadcom family are fairly recent additions to the line, and someone (perhaps Mr. Paul himself, and, er, thank you, sir!) added the necessary information to support these new cards since November. Kevin Kinsey --- Law of Continuity: Experiments should be reproducible. They should all fail the same way.