Re: [9fans] GigE drivers

Re: [9fans] GigE drivers

[forsyth]

how do the various cards perform?

Re: [9fans] GigE drivers

[Christopher Nielsen]

On Fri, Mar 16, 2001 at 08:11:04AM -0500, jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:

> We have drivers for the Netgear GA620/GA620T (Alteon chip,
> untried on the 3Com) and for the Intel RS-82543GC chip
> as found on the Intel PRO/1000[FT] Server Adapter (the older
> non-[FT] cards use the 82542 (LSI L2A1157) chip).

Ah cool! Are they releaseable? Intel has been a real pain
about docs for anything unless you sign an NDA, making the
source unreleaseable.

Now that 3Com has purchased the Alteon NIC biz, they're
developing the Tigon III chips for the newer cards, for
which they are not releasing docs. If I recall correctly,
Broadcom is making the new chips for 3Com.

> A driver for the Syskonnect cards would be nice, that would
> cover all the major players, although the way Intel are agressively
> pricing their cards there may be only one player in the future.

Ok. I'll look into a driver for those cards, then.

-- 
Christopher Nielsen - Metal-wielding pyro techie
cnielsen@pobox.com
"Any technology indistinguishable from magic is 
insufficiently advanced." --unknown

Re: [9fans] GigE drivers

[jmk]

On Fri Mar 16 08:20:23 EST 2001, forsyth@vitanuova.com wrote:
> how do the various cards perform?
> 

Adequately, but not greatly. Both cards have lots of tuning options
which can be played with but i haven't got round to that (the Lucent
Managed Firewall people get very impressive results with a tuned
version of the Intel driver). Also, there are other bottlenecks in
the IP stack need to be addressed.

I think the Alteon-based cards are near the end of their life, now
that 3Com has bought the NIC chip part of Alteon information is drying
up and I've no idea about any future products.

Re: [9fans] GigE drivers

[jmk]

On Fri Mar 16 04:49:24 EST 2001, cnielsen@pobox.com wrote:
> Is anyone working on gigabit ethernet drivers?
> 
> I have the docs for the 3Com (formerly Alteon) and
> SysKonnect NICs.
> 
> If I were to write a driver for multiple platforms,
> where is the best place to put the source?  I think
> /sys/src/9/port, but I mostly see driver source in
> the MD directories of the tree.
> 

We have drivers for the Netgear GA620/GA620T (Alteon chip,
untried on the 3Com) and for the Intel RS-82543GC chip
as found on the Intel PRO/1000[FT] Server Adapter (the older
non-[FT] cards use the 82542 (LSI L2A1157) chip).

A driver for the Syskonnect cards would be nice, that would
cover all the major players, although the way Intel are agressively
pricing their cards there may be only one player in the future.

The drivers are currently in the MD directories.

--jim

[9fans] GigE drivers

[Christopher Nielsen]

Is anyone working on gigabit ethernet drivers?

I have the docs for the 3Com (formerly Alteon) and
SysKonnect NICs.

If I were to write a driver for multiple platforms,
where is the best place to put the source?  I think
/sys/src/9/port, but I mostly see driver source in
the MD directories of the tree.

-- 
Christopher Nielsen - Metal-wielding pyro techie
cnielsen@pobox.com
"Any technology indistinguishable from magic is 
insufficiently advanced." --unknown