Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 14:28:06 +0200 (CEST) From: Barry Bouwsma <freebsd-misuser@remove-NOSPAM-to-reply.NOSPAM.dyndns.dk> To: FreeBSD Stable <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org> Subject: MFC of Realtek if_re support? Message-ID: <200407291228.i6TCS6601446@Mail.NOSPAM.DynDNS.dK>
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Yeah, yeah, and all that. Is there any plan to either MFC the if_re Realtek driver with support for GigEthernet into 4.x, or less likely, unrevert the reversion of if_rl which had early support for some chipsets, reverted right before a release when it apparently broke other support, and bring that up-to-date? I've tried out the un-reverted if_rl with my newly-purchased card just for fun, where it's clear that more additions are needed to the code from that point of time to make it coexist with my card. Also, it's not the way of -current. Then I tried hacking the if_re from -current to shoehorn it into compiling with my -stable, and after a disturbing number of hacks whose correctness I cannot vouch for (I'm no hacker or programmer and have no idea what I'm doing), finally got something that compiled, woo. After adding rgephy to miibus, I'm able to kldload the if_re kernel module and it actually recognizes my card: re0: <RealTek 8169S Single-chip Gigabit Ethernet> port 0x6200-0x62ff mem 0xe1002000-0xe10020ff irq 9 at device 10.0 on pci0 miibus0: <MII bus> on re0 rgephy0: <RTL8169S/8110S media interface> on miibus0 rgephy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseTX, 1000baseTX-FDX, auto bpf: re0 attached After a few days of additional hacking, I'm able to `ifconfig' it to actually do something, too. I'd almost say it works, but I don't really have the network to test it. There seem to be a number of minor issues, like I can't force 100Mbit full-duplex, while autoselect works fine to give me full-duplex 100Mbit, but I see the same thing under the NetBSD- current import of the driver. (I don't have FreeBSD-current ability at the moment.) My hacks are uglier than sin, and I'd prefer that someone who actually knows what they are doing make a patch for -stable, but I'll grudgingly share my hideous hacks privately with any interested parties. I haven't tried this card other than connected to a fast switch, and under any OS but my 4.x (and a brief foray into NetBSD-current) yet, and I thought it would be best to pass this to some expert who might know more than I do. And by the way, I'm curious whether anyone can say anything about this chip, like whether the comments about other Realtek chipsets apply, or what. (For the price I paid, I don't expect stellar performance, but I'm curious how it stacks up against the others.) thanks barry bouwsma
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