From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jun 3 23:39:23 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: 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 3231A16A583 for ; Sat, 3 Jun 2006 23:39:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.web-strider.com [65.75.192.90]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0C42D43D4C for ; Sat, 3 Jun 2006 23:39:22 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) Received: from tedwin2k (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.197.130]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id k53NdHx47012; Sat, 3 Jun 2006 16:39:18 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: , "Heinrich Rebehn" , Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 16:39:17 -0700 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <20060603232548.86465.qmail@web33308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1807 Importance: Normal Cc: Subject: RE: Recommendation for 1000BASE-SX card? 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: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 23:39:23 -0000 >-----Original Message----- >From: Danial Thom [mailto:danial_thom@yahoo.com] >Sent: Saturday, June 03, 2006 4:26 PM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt; Heinrich Rebehn; questions@freebsd.org >Subject: RE: Recommendation for 1000BASE-SX card? > > >I think its often difficult to distinguish >between what is crappy, because good code can >make bad hardware look good and vice versa. All >ethernet controllers were designed by idiots. > >My first success story (now I don't want to let >on to who I really am so I'll be vague), was an >ISA card by a major vendor that locked up >regularly, and it had a hideous reputation as >being a bad card. It was the only card of its >kind, and I needed it badly. They gave me >schematics and said that they had tried and tried >but couldn't find anything wrong with the card. >They had contracted out to some brainfarm to >write a driver, and the thing was this beautiful >self-contained scheduler (this is like MSDOS 3 >mind you) with documented source, the whole deal. >Well I tore it apart, simplified the code, got >rid of all the soft interrupt passes and cleaned >up all the memory management code. Now the card >worked like a charm, didn't lock up, ran better >than their spec and Mega-Billon$- company >couldn't believe that some 23yo kid wrote a >driver that a company they paid 100K to couldn't >get to work. > Musta been one of those Intel SatisFAXion cards. ;-) >My point is that until someone writes a really >good driver you never know if hardware is any >good or not. Now some hardware is hopeless. I'm >not sure that the broadcom controllers are that >hopeless. But since the intel cards work well and >are cheap, who's going to spend the time to pour >over the broadcom driver and make it better? >There's a ton of I/Os in there that can be >streamlined. But who's gonna do it? Its sure not >worth my time. > Precisely!!