Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 16:26:09 +0000 From: Scott Mitchell <scott@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> To: Alan DuBoff <aland@SoftOrchestra.com> Cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: compatibility list Message-ID: <19990311162609.S23921@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19990310212233.02011ea0@blueneptune.com>; from Alan DuBoff on Wed, Mar 10, 1999 at 09:22:36PM -0800 References: <3.0.32.19990310212233.02011ea0@blueneptune.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wed, Mar 10, 1999 at 09:22:36PM -0800, Alan DuBoff wrote: > At 04:40 PM 3/10/99 -0400, Victor Salaman wrote: > >In fact, I have ported my own driver from Linux drivers > >from David Hinds distribution for one of my cards > > At the risk of showing my ignorance I would like to ask what is involved in > doing that? > > I have a card that has a driver supported on Linux, the 3Com 3c574-TX, it's > a 10/100 PCMCIA Fast Ethernet card, but it is kinda unique in that it is 16 > bit. > > There is also a 3c574-TX which is a 32 bit CardBus, however, many laptop > owners may be familiar with the 32 bit problems associated with mixing > 32/16 bit cards. If you aren't, the 16 bit cards are often not recognized > upon reboot, it's a known problem as many IHVs handle 32 bitness differently. > > I actually bought a 589D from a friend a couple weeks ago for $50 (seemed > like a good deal to me, seeing as they are discontinued now!;-) as they are > supported on every single OS I would want to run on my laptop. > > I might be willing to port the 3c574 driver over to FreeBSD if I knew what > all was involved. But without knowing what is involved I don't know that I > can do it, and as one other gent pointed out, I need to feed and provide > for my family, and am limited on amount of time I have available. As him, I > whore myself out to people that *WILL* pay me to write software for them, > and I'm not about to quit doing that just yet...However, I might be willing > to invest some time to provide a port of a driver for the above card, I > don't know yet. It's not too hideous, if you don't mind getting your hands dirty on kernel code. The main thing is having the manufacturers documentation -- porting the Xircom driver with only the Linux code to refer to has been *hell*. Fortunately Xircom are about to come to the party... If you've got working code for Linux or whatever, then a 'port' amounts to munging that into the BSD driver framework, which is a little different. The ed driver is a really good template -- I've basically ended up ripping out the h/w specific parts of that and replacing them with the Xircom stuff. For a 10/100 card you'll also have to deal with media autoselection; the xl, fxp and tl (?) drivers are pretty good sources for that. There you go. Easy huh? Scott -- =========================================================================== Scott Mitchell | PGP Key ID |"If I can't have my coffee, I'm just <scott@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> | 0x54B171B9 | like a dried up piece of roast goat" QMW College, London, UK | 0xAA775B8B | -- J. S. Bach. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?19990311162609.S23921>