[9fans] PCMCIA Ethernet

[9fans] PCMCIA Ethernet

[Brian L. Stuart]

Is anyone currently successfully using a pcmcia
ethernet card?  The last time I tried to do this,
I came to the conclusion that I would need to
sacrifice a chicken to get it to work, and I
ended up moving on to something else.  But I'm
back to trying this.  I've tried with several
versions of the 3c589 and an old linksys.  On
all these, aux/pcmcia reports the right thing,
but trying to bind #l reports no free devices.
Is there some magic incantation to make it
work.  It doesn't seem to matter whether I
put an entry in plan9.ini.  Ultimately, I want
to get a 3c575 working, but neither of the ones
I have lying around are recognized by aux/pcmcia,
so I figured it'd be better to start with something
a little more boring.

Of course, if someone has a hidden broadcom
driver lying around, that would obviate the
need for the pcmcia card...:-)

Thanks,
BLS

Re: [9fans] PCMCIA Ethernet

[Martin Neubauer]

I am using a 3c589 and remember having the same symptoms at first. Jmk then
gave me the hint to try the other slot which amazingly did the trick. I then
didn't investigate that further. Incidentally, I'm also having a 572 lying
around I'm hoping to get running someday. As far as I remember, those are
pretty close to the 574/575 bunch driver-wise. Just not supported on Plan 9.

While somewhat unspecific, I hope that helps somewhat,
	Martin

* Brian L. Stuart (blstuart@bellsouth.net) wrote:
> Is anyone currently successfully using a pcmcia
> ethernet card?  The last time I tried to do this,
> I came to the conclusion that I would need to
> sacrifice a chicken to get it to work, and I
> ended up moving on to something else.  But I'm
> back to trying this.  I've tried with several
> versions of the 3c589 and an old linksys.  On
> all these, aux/pcmcia reports the right thing,
> but trying to bind #l reports no free devices.
> Is there some magic incantation to make it
> work.  It doesn't seem to matter whether I
> put an entry in plan9.ini.  Ultimately, I want
> to get a 3c575 working, but neither of the ones
> I have lying around are recognized by aux/pcmcia,
> so I figured it'd be better to start with something
> a little more boring.
>
> Of course, if someone has a hidden broadcom
> driver lying around, that would obviate the
> need for the pcmcia card...:-)
>
> Thanks,
> BLS

Re: [9fans] PCMCIA Ethernet

[Brian L. Stuart]

> I am using a 3c589 and remember having the same symptoms at first. Jmk then
> gave me the hint to try the other slot which amazingly did the trick. I then
> didn't investigate that further. Incidentally, I'm also having a 572 lying
> around I'm hoping to get running someday. As far as I remember, those are
> pretty close to the 574/575 bunch driver-wise. Just not supported on Plan 9.
>
> While somewhat unspecific, I hope that helps somewhat,

Interesting.  This particular machine only has 1 slot, but this
does suggest where to start looking in the code.  If I do get
this sorted out, then I'll see if I can take a crack at the 575
and similar cards.

Thanks,
BLS

Re: [9fans] PCMCIA Ethernet

[Steve Simon]

I was using a 3c589 until a few years ago, then  I moved to
a Netgear FA411 which is somwhat more mechanically robust -
I broke the plug on the 3com card :-(

-Steve

Re: [9fans] PCMCIA Ethernet

[Brian L. Stuart]

> I was using a 3c589 until a few years ago, then  I moved to
> a Netgear FA411 which is somwhat more mechanically robust -
> I broke the plug on the 3com card :-(

It sounds like for a number of people it's working just
fine, and no one's put forward any real magic to make
it work, except for using the other slot on some machines.
So that brings up the question, why is it working on
some machines, and some slots, and not others.  To
me that seems to point to the PCMCIA code, but then
aux/pcmcia picks it up.  I expect I'll try to move
forward by adding some debug output to try and trace
what's happening and what's not.  But if anyone
has any great PCMCIA wisdom, feel free to speak
up :-)  Along those lines, if a CardBus controller
is not recognized by devpccard, should I expect
dev82365 to handle it correctly?

And I too have had trouble with the connectors on
the 3com cards.  This one will end up in a rack,
so I figure it's a good place for a pigtail that
can't take too much stress.

Thanks,
BLS

Re: [9fans] PCMCIA Ethernet

[Andy Spencer]

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> Of course, if someone has a hidden broadcom driver lying around, that
> would obviate the need for the pcmcia card...:-)

There's is some code laying around for Broadcom 570x cards:
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/contrib/uriel/mirror/bc.tgz

I've been trying to get that working on a computer of mine that has a
BCM5751 card but so far I don't have it working.

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Re: [9fans] PCMCIA Ethernet

[Brian L. Stuart]

> There's is some code laying around for Broadcom 570x cards:
> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/contrib/uriel/mirror/bc.tgz

I'll take a look at it.  I seem to recall some discussion of
it and that it was in a pretty incomplete state.  If I'm
remembering correctly, I'm thinking my chances might be
better with the PCMCIA route first.

BLS