Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 00:52:09 -0700 (PDT) From: Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com> To: Bill Paul <wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Call for testers for ThunderLAN ethernet driver Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.95.980505005006.18134A-100000@current1.whistle.com> In-Reply-To: <199805050505.BAA28835@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu>
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neat! since it's a new driver and doesn't break anyone's existing functionality, when you get the first "it works", then I suggest it be checked in so that teh rest of the world can easily try it out.. particularly thise with compaq machines.. that'll get you a lot of testing a lot quicker.. sounds like you've done a thorough job! julian On Tue, 5 May 1998, Bill Paul wrote: > Recently I had a couple of Compaq machines with integrated ethernet > controllers foisted on me, and was lucky enough to be able to install > FreeBSD on one of them. Unfortunately, FreeBSD didn't support the Texas > Instruments ThunderLAN (tm) ethernet chip in this machine, so I took it > upon myself to write my own driver for it. > > After a whole two weeks worth of work, the driver is more or less > complete (inasmuch as it works for me), and now I'd like to find some > other people to test it before I slap it into the tree. I'm especially > interested in testers for FreeBSD 3.0-current: I initially developed > this driver for FreeBSD 2.2.6 and have only been able to test it there. > I've made the necessary changes to make it compile on -current, but > I can't trash this machine to install a -current snapshot to test it > as it's now more or less in production. > > The driver supports about a half-dozen Compaq Netelligent adapters and > Netflex integrated ethernet controllers. It also supports both the > ThunderLAN embedded physical interface (PHY) and external PHYs such as the > National Semiconductor DP83840A. It should also work with any other PHY > that is MII-compliant. With the DP83840A (or equivalent) PHY, both > 10Mbps and 100Mbps in half or full duplex are supported. The ThunderLAN's > built-in PHY only supports 10Mbps. Modes can be set either manually or > through autonegotiation. > > Although I have not tested it, it should also support some Texas Instruments > ethernet adapters based on the ThunderLAN chip as well. > > The driver is available at the following places: > > ftp.ctr.columbia.edu:/pub/misc/freebsd/thunderlan.tar.gz > ftp.freebsd.org:/pub/FreeBSD/incoming/thunderlan.tar.gz > > The distribution includes if_tl.c, if_tlreg.h and a README which explains > how to build a kernel with ThunderLAN support. > > So far I've only run limited tests, but they've been encouraging. I have > a Proliant servera with a 300Mhz Pentium Pro with 512K cache and 64MB RAM > running FreeBSD 2.2.6 attached to a Cisco Catalyst 2900 10/100 switch. > I can achieve FTP transfers between this machine and a LoseNT Sewer 4.0 > system (with identical hardware except for extra RAM) at about 11.5MB/sec in > full duplex mode. The LoseNT machine is a little slower transmitting than > it is recveiving: transmitting from it to the FreeBSD system typically > runs at around 9.8Mb/sec. Transfers between the FreeBSD and another > LoseNT 4.0 Workstation machine, this one a Dell with an Intel EtherExpress > Pro 100B card, average about 11.5MB/sec both ways. > > I set up the driver to use PCI memory mapping to access the > ThunderLAN's registers as opposed to using programmed I/O, which is > what both the Linux and NetBSD drivers do. There probably isn't any > particular advantage to doing it this way, but it seemed niftier somehow. > I also set up the receive and transmit lists such that the chip DMA's > data directly between mbufs and its internal SRAM in order to avoid > buffer copies. The driver also includes ifmedia, multicast and BPF > support. > > I would appreciate if people running FreeBSD 2.2.6 that have Compaq > hardware could test this driver to make sure it works, and if people > running 3.0-current who know their way around the kernel networking > code could review the code to see if it actually does the right thing > on 3.0. My porting to 3.0 basically consisted of copying the driver > to bento.freebsd.org and hammering on it for a few minutes until it > compiled; odds are this was not enough. Please send bug reports, > success reports or patches to wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu. > > -Bill > > -- > ============================================================================= > -Bill Paul (212) 854-6020 | System Manager, Master of Unix-Fu > Work: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu | Center for Telecommunications Research > Home: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu | Columbia University, New York City > ============================================================================= > "It is not I who am crazy; it is I who am mad!" - Ren Hoek, "Space Madness" > ============================================================================= > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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