[9fans] Re: etherelnk3.c

[Eric Dorman eld@jewel.ucsd.edu]

> From: "G. David Butler" <gdb@dbSystems.com>
> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
> Subject: [9fans] Re: etherelnk3.c
> 
> Hello All!
> 
> I've just started the process of back porting the brazil
> etherelnk3 driver to Plan9.  I would like some feedback
> from this list (9fans) about some of the porting issues.
[xxx]
> After a quick perusal of the code, we have a big decision
> to make.  This brazil driver does not use RingBuf, it uses
> Blocks.  It also moves the Ctlr structure out of ether.h
> and into the driver .c file.  The former change allows
> more data to be buffered and the latter allows driver
> specific data to be localized.  These are both "good" things.

> Devether.c is not compatible with either of these changes,
> so we have to either update the entire ethernet subsystem to
> use Blocks, or make this driver use RingBufs and dirty the
> ether.h Card and Ctlr structures with the overhead of this
> driver.

  Another thing to consider is how these changes would affect
the integration of ether drivers between the fs and terminal code.
Integrating these two trees first allieviates a whole mess of 
existing problems and ensures that this type of effort won't 
have to be done again (perhaps differently, even) for fs.
 
> David Butler
> gdb@dbSystems.com

Regards,

Eric L. Dorman
University of California at San Diego
edorman@ucsd.edu