Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 21:01:10 +0200 From: Mark Murray <mark@grondar.za> To: Bill Paul <wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> Cc: stable@FreeBSD.ORG, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Looking for feedback on xl (3c905/3c905B) driver Message-ID: <199808291901.VAA06715@gratis.grondar.za>
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Bill Paul wrote: > Basically I'm looking for as many success or failure reports as possible. > If you're having trouble with the driver and you don't tell me about it, > I can't help you, so speak up. If you're not having trouble and it's > working well, I'd like to know that too. It is working on my home (CURRENT) and colleagues (STABLE) boxes extremely well. The vx0 driver would frequently go into a (suspected) lose-all-interrupts mode, and run like molasses. The xl0 driver s smooth, fast and trouble-free so far. > Here are some things I'd like to know: > > - What kind of adapter you have. Note that a 3c905-TX is NOT THE SAME > as a 3c905B-TX. (See the 'B'? It makes a difference.) Double and triple > check the model. Don't tell me you have a 3c905B when you actually only > have a 3c905. If you want to be really nice, do 'dmesg | grep xl' and > show me the output. 3c900 XL's. > - The driver version you're using. If you obtained the driver by > cvsup'ing -current or -stable, then you have the latest one. If you > downloaded the driver from www.freebsd.org/~wpaul/3Com within the > last week, then you also have the latest one. If you're not sure, > show me the rcsid strings from if_xl.c and if_xlreg.h. Regular CVSUP, so recent. > - Does the driver detect all of the adapter's media types correctly? Yes. > - Is the system stable? Have you had problems with kernel panics since > you started using the driver? Is mbuf usage normal or does it look > like there's an mbuf leak? (use netstat -m to monitor mbuf usage) Rock steady. > - Type of system (CPU type/speed). Are you using a slower system like > a 486 or older Pentium (P75, P90, P1xx, etc...)? If so, are there > problems with performance? Are you using SCSI disks or IDE disks? P5/200(SMP untested) and P5166. > - Type of network to which the adapter is attached. Are you using a > hub? A switch? Crossover cable to another machine? Coax? AUI? If a hub, > are there lots of hosts on the same segment? Home - coax. Work - utp. > - How many adapters in the system. 1 all round. > - How heavily loaded is the system. Is this just a personal machine > with occasional network traffic or is it a heavily used server? > (http, FTP, NFS, login shell box, etc...) Is it a router? Home - deveopment net - I beat the crap out of it in short bursts (CVS over NFS etc. Work - production environment - very heavy workstaion use. > - Observed performance. Does the adapter/driver work well under load? > Does the adapter lock up or otherwise misbehave under high-load > conditions? Are there lots of input or output errors? (use netstat -in > to check) Do you ever have to ifconfig down and ifconfig up the adapter > to reset it? Better perfomance than old driver, and none of the old hassles. > - 'Out of buffers' problems. Does the 'OACTIVE' flag ever show up when > you do 'ifconfig xl0'? No. > - Unusual error messages. Are there any diagnostics generated by the > driver that don't look normal? (timeouts, transmission errors, etc...) None. > - Multicast operation. Is the adapter receiving all the multicast > frames that it should? (Note that the 3c905B adapters have a hash > filter whereas the 3c900 and 3c905 adapters have only a 'receive all > multicast frames' mode, so reports about the 3c905B are more useful.) Not tested. > - Unusual configurations. Are you using firewalling? Network address > translation? Proxy ARP? IP aliases? Shitloads of IP aliases? Do you > have Lose95/98/NT installed on your machine along with FreeBSD? > Do you have problems warm booting from Lose95/98/NT to FreeBSD? > (Adapter not probed, adapter not reset correctly after warm boot...) No. > - Benchmarks. Have you compared the xl driver's performance against > any others? What were the numbers? What benchmarks did you use? > Was performace good? Bad? Ugly? Better perfomance based on "feel", rather than hard stats. > Here are some things I don't want to hear: ROTFLMAO. M -- Mark Murray Join the anti-SPAM movement: http://www.cauce.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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