From owner-freebsd-hardware Fri May 22 21:42:13 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id VAA29550 for freebsd-hardware-outgoing; Fri, 22 May 1998 21:42:13 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from sasami.jurai.net (winter@sasami.jurai.net [207.153.65.3]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA29545 for ; Fri, 22 May 1998 21:42:06 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from winter@jurai.net) Received: from localhost (winter@localhost) by sasami.jurai.net (8.8.8/8.8.7) with SMTP id AAA19962; Sat, 23 May 1998 00:41:58 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 00:41:57 -0400 (EDT) From: "Matthew N. Dodd" To: Tom cc: Hugh LaMaster , FreeBSD Hardware Subject: Re: Seeking hardware recommendations In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Fri, 22 May 1998, Tom wrote: > The DEC chipsets are not that well supported. The media detection is > problematic. There are many variances from model to model (at least a > half a dozen different chipset versions). Ugh... The failure to auto detect is caused by lack of specific support for PHY specific detection routines. NetBSD appears to be taking steps to deal with this by creating PHY specific 'drivers' that attach to an MII 'bus'. This moves MII code out of the individual driver and potentially reduces code duplication (in the case where several cards share a number of PHYs) I've spoken with Bill Paul about this and while we both agreed that this would be a good thing, neither he or I have the time to do the work. (He's got more interesting (for some value of) projects and I'm stuck in the dark ages without any ethernet devices that support MII PHYs (mostly due to my lack of PCI based systems at home.)) As a large number of available PHYs on the market (TI, National Semi, Level One, PLX etc.) have full datasheets available doing the MII specific code should be somewhat straight-forward. Check out sys/dev/mii for NetBSD's code. /* Matthew N. Dodd | A memory retaining a love you had for life winter@jurai.net | As cruel as it seems nothing ever seems to http://www.jurai.net/~winter | go right - FLA M 3.1:53 */ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message