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Date:      Sat, 23 May 1998 00:41:57 -0400 (EDT)
From:      "Matthew N. Dodd" <winter@jurai.net>
To:        Tom <tom@sdf.com>
Cc:        Hugh LaMaster <lamaster@george.arc.nasa.gov>, FreeBSD Hardware <freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Seeking hardware recommendations
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.980523003329.17033l-100000@sasami.jurai.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.980522172843.21115C-100000@misery.sdf.com>

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On Fri, 22 May 1998, Tom wrote:
>   The DEC chipsets are not that well supported.  The media detection is
> problematic.  There are many variances from model to model (at least a
> half a dozen different chipset versions).  Ugh...

The failure to auto detect is caused by lack of specific support for PHY
specific detection routines.

NetBSD appears to be taking steps to deal with this by creating PHY
specific 'drivers' that attach to an MII 'bus'.

This moves MII code out of the individual driver and potentially reduces
code duplication (in the case where several cards share a number of PHYs)

I've spoken with Bill Paul about this and while we both agreed that this
would be a good thing, neither he or I have the time to do the work.
(He's got more interesting (for some value of) projects and I'm stuck in
the dark ages without any ethernet devices that support MII PHYs (mostly
due to my lack of PCI based systems at home.))

As a large number of available PHYs on the market (TI, National Semi,
Level One, PLX etc.) have full datasheets available doing the MII specific
code should be somewhat straight-forward.

Check out sys/dev/mii for NetBSD's code.

/* 
   Matthew N. Dodd		| A memory retaining a love you had for life	
   winter@jurai.net		| As cruel as it seems nothing ever seems to
   http://www.jurai.net/~winter | go right - FLA M 3.1:53	
*/


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