From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jan 6 02:14:34 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id CAA25482 for hackers-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 02:14:34 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from penrose.isocor.ie (penrose.isocor.ie [194.106.155.117]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id CAA25478 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 02:14:24 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from peter.edwards@penrose.isocor.ie) Received: from plank (194.106.155.26) by penrose.isocor.ie; 6 Jan 1998 10:13:31 +0000 Message-ID: <34B20383.222E6797@penrose.isocor.ie> Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 10:12:19 +0000 From: Peter Edwards Organization: ISOCOR X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (WinNT; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Brian Handy CC: Chris Timmons , freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: mii device X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk Hi, >mii - media independent interface. does your card have an MII port, too? Some cards (many of the DEC 2114[023] devices and the Intel Pro100/B at least) have an on-board MII-compliant PHY device that controls the physical layer interface (ie, its what is wired to the TP connection on the board). It'll do things like auto-detect the network speed and duplex mode. There IS a standard MII connector. The idea behind this (as far as I understand) is given a particular NIC, you can plug a different MII PHY into it, and use the card with a different medium. Eg, get a Fibre, 10-BaseT, 100-BaseTX, or 100-BaseT4 PHY, and plug in to the wire. Hope that helps. -- Peter.