Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 16:17:37 -0400 From: Charles Swiger <cswiger@mac.com> To: ceo@l-i-e.com Cc: freebsd-questions@www.freebsd.org Subject: Re: Broadcom 440x NIC not recognized on boot Message-ID: <75A7219A-0366-11D9-AB92-003065ABFD92@mac.com> In-Reply-To: <1333.67.167.52.21.1094845927.squirrel@www.l-i-e.com> References: <1093.67.167.52.21.1094522790.squirrel@www.l-i-e.com> <b2807d0404090620006d55e892@mail.gmail.com> <1325.67.167.52.21.1094527694.squirrel@www.l-i-e.com> <10027.66.243.145.85.1094788839.squirrel@www.l-i-e.com> <b2807d04040910033546339787@mail.gmail.com> <1333.67.167.52.21.1094845927.squirrel@www.l-i-e.com>
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On Sep 10, 2004, at 3:52 PM, Richard Lynch wrote:
> Sometimes, when one talks about a "config" file, one is talking about
> editing /etc/*.conf, and start/stop a service, or, in extreme cases,
> re-booting.
>
> Are there run-time options to the kernel in such a file?
Some of the settings one can make in /etc/rc.conf end up making
run-time changes to the kernel. A simple example would be
gateway_enable='yes', which sets the sysctl net.inet.ip.forwarding=1.
> Or are all kernel-configuration options done at compile-time?
No.
[ ... ]
> Given that this device has a different device identification, but that
> Windows identifies it as a BCM 440x, and that bfe supports the BCM
> 4401,
> and the BFE docs indicate that that driver should work for the BCM 440x
> "series", am I reasonable to expect that if I could just add a line of
> code somewhere with the new device identification, it has a strong
> possibility of working?
Yes. Take a look at the code in /usr/src/sys/dev/bfe/if_bfe.c:
static struct bfe_type bfe_devs[] = {
{ BCOM_VENDORID, BCOM_DEVICEID_BCM4401,
"Broadcom BCM4401 Fast Ethernet" },
{ 0, 0, NULL }
};
...define a BCOM_DEVICEID_BCM4403 in if_bfereg.h, and add a similar
entry to the struct above.
> What I'm not completely clear on is:
> Does a different device ID pretty much guarantee that the same driver
> won't work, or do drivers often work for a bunch of chips with
> different
> IDs that really aren't all that different in API?
Really popular chipsets end up being cloned or re-released with minor
variants over time, so one driver can handle many different PCI vendor
ID/device ID combos. But that all depends on the specific
circumstances, there are few generalizations which can be made
reliably.
--
-Chuck
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