Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 11:43:37 -0600 (CST) From: Mike Silbersack <silby@silby.com> To: Eirik Nygaard <eirikn@bluezone.no> Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: NIC driver Message-ID: <20030122112649.S7613-100000@patrocles.silby.com> In-Reply-To: <20030122155138.GA928@eirikn.net> References: <20030122130637.GA10760@eirikn.net> <20030122081837.X6780-100000@patrocles.silby.com> <20030122143554.GB10760@eirikn.net> <20030122091204.R7064-100000@patrocles.silby.com> <20030122155138.GA928@eirikn.net>
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On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Eirik Nygaard wrote: > none4@pci0:4:0: class=0x020000 card=0x0c111043 chip=0x01c310de rev=0xc2 hdr=0x00 > > rl0@pci1:8:0 is another realtek card I put into the computer to be > abel to copy the pciconf -l info without manually writing it over. > The network card is none4@pci0:4:0 it seems if I use the -v switch > also. > > none4@pci0:4:0: class=0x020000 card=0x0c111043 chip=0x01c310de rev=0xc2 hdr=0x00 > vendor = 'Nvidia Corporation' > device = 'nForce MCP Networking Adapter' > class = network > subclass = ethernet > > -- > > Eirik Nygaard <eirikn@bluezone.no> Hm, I guess we don't support that chipset. Apologies for the confusion, I was confused by an earlier commit regarding NForce2 boards; apparently some vendors are shipping boards with Nvidia's onboard ethernet _and_ a secondary 3com interface. (The reason for the secondary interace will become clear in a second.) The Realtek 8201L is merely the PHY part of the chip, which we already support. As for the main ethernet chip, we don't currently have a driver. While a Linux driver does exist, it's totally useless in our situation. Nvidia has the driver split into a closed binary and a wrapper; there's no way to figure out how to program the chip from the wrapper alone. Your only option is to bug Nvidia into releasing either the chip's documentation or the source code to the Linux network driver. You might want to look around various Linux mailing lists and see if someone has already figured out who to contact; I doubt that anyone is happy with the binary only driver. (Especially given that virtually every other NIC has at least a GPL'd driver, even if it's poorly documented.) I'd recommend getting used to the realtek card you threw into the box; it seems unlikely that you're going to be able to get Nvidia to cave into giving out documentation without a prolonged fight. Mike "Silby" Silbersack To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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