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Re: RealTek 8139 driver, 4. revision
- From: Gary Thomas <gary at mlbassoc dot com>
- To: Eric Doenges <Eric dot Doenges at DynaPel dot com>
- Cc: eCos patches <ecos-patches at ecos dot sourceware dot org>
- Date: 11 Nov 2003 09:04:58 -0700
- Subject: Re: RealTek 8139 driver, 4. revision
- Organization: MLB Associates
- References: <3FB10769.20204@DynaPel.com>
On Tue, 2003-11-11 at 08:59, Eric Doenges wrote:
> Hi,
>
Did you mean to attach the driver or send a URL?
>
> this is the fourth (and hopefully final =8^) revision of my RealTek
> 8139 driver. Compared to the 3. revision released way back in August,
> the only changes are in the documentation and the PC-specific
> .inl file, which now tells the driver to handle cache coherency in
> software. The same limitations that existed in August still apply:
>
> a) The driver assumes the MAC address, media selection, etc. is
> configured via an EEPROM; these settings cannot be changed by the
> driver.
>
> b) The 'twister' cannot be tuned.
>
> c) Interrupt muxing like the Intel 82559 driver has is not supported.
> If multiple 8139s share one interrupt, chained interrupts have to
> be enabled for the HAL.
>
> d) The multicast acceptance filter code is completely untested, since
> I have no multicast test bed. A kind soul recommended testing with
> an IPv6 network; however, I don't have that either.
>
> e) All testing has been done on a custom architecture (Equator BSP),
> not on a i386 PC like the included (sample) .inl file might suggest.
> (This is because I totally failed to get eCos to boot on my PC at
> home). As a result, it may not work as expected on other platforms.
>
> f) It's slow. The 8139 is a low-cost chip that makes heavy demands on
> the CPU. You need a fast target to get anywhere near 100MBit/s
> performance with this chip (this is not really a driver problem -
> Linux on the same hardware is only marginally faster).
>
> One more thing - RedHat has now confirmed my copyright assignment, so
> the driver can now go into the CVS repository.
>
> Enjoy,
--
Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com>
MLB Associates