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Date:      Wed, 23 Sep 1998 16:33:14 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Bill Paul <wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu>
To:        mturpin@shadow.spel.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, hardware@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Call for testers for RealTek 8139 driver
Message-ID:  <199809232033.QAA29223@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu>

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This is a call for testers for yet another PCI fast ethernet device
driver, this time for the RealTek 8129 and 8139 chips. Note: I only
have an 8139 adapter so I can't tell for sure if the 8129 support
really works. The only major difference is that the 8129 uses an
external PHY and needs MDIO support whereas the 8139 has a transceiver
built in and the registers can be read directly.

The source code is available from the following location:

http://www.freebsd.org/~wpaul/RealTek/3.0	source for FreeBSD 3.0
http://www.freebsd.org/~wpaul/RealTek/2.2	source for FreeBSD 2.2.x

To add the driver to an existing system, do the following:

- Copy if_rl.c and if_rlreg.h to /sys/pci

- Edit /sys/conf/files and add a line that says:

pci/if_rl.c             optional rl device-driver

- Edit your kernel config file (e.g. /sys/i386/conf/GENERIC) and add
  a line that says:

device rl0

- Compile a new kernel and reboot.

You should get something like the following:

rl0: <RealTek 8139 10/100BaseTX> rev 0x10 int a irq 14 on pci2.10.0
rl0: Ethernet address: 00:40:c7:79:18:1c
rl0: autoneg complete, link status good (full-duplex, 100Mbps)

My test machine is a PII 400Mhz system; on this system I can easily
get 11MB/s transfer rates at 100Mbps full-duplex. Since the driver has
to perform buffer copies, performance may not be quite as good on slower
systems. Also, the autonegotiation on this chip seems a little flaky:
you may have to force the proper mode using ifconfig in order to set
it correctly for your network.

As usual, report problems or success reports to 
wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu.

For those who are wondering, no, this driver will not make it into
FreeBSD 3.0-RELEASE: 3.0 is in a feature freeze and we have enough
new code to whack into shape before the ship date.

Next on the hit parade: the Winbond W89C840F chip.

-- 
=============================================================================
-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"
=============================================================================

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