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Date:      Tue, 09 Apr 96 09:34:37 PST
From:      "Brett Glass" <Brett_Glass@ccgate.infoworld.com>
To:        freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org
Subject:   Artisoft AE-3 Ethernet card: How to use large buffer?
Message-ID:  <9603098290.AA829071865@ccgate.infoworld.com>

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Please forgive me if this posting appears more than once; my first one did
not seem to get through.

I'm running FreeBSD on a machine with an Artisoft AE-3 card -- an NE2000
clone with 64K (rather than the usual 16K) of buffer space. How can I get
FreeBSD to recognize, and use, this additional space for transmit (and,
especially, receive) buffering? The kernel source, which is almost
uncommented, is tough to analyze but suggests that the OS will assume an
NE2000-compatible card has 16K of buffering. There's a hint, in the code,
that the buffer size can be set by the boot-time kernel configuration
program (that is, by booting with the -c option), but it's not clear how
one might set it.

There's also some conditionaly compiled code having to do with a Gateway
Ethernet card.  It's not normally compiled in. However, it appears that (if
I'm reading it correctly) it *may* test the size of the card's internal
RAM. Turning on this option would make the kernel bigger and require
recompilation, though, so it wouldn't be as efficient as a boot-time
option I could set with -c.

I need advice as to how to proceed. Can I use the boot-time kernel
configuration (-c) to let the driver know that I have 64K of onboard buffer
space? If so, what do I enter? If I *can't* do it via -c, will enabling the
Gateway code work? If the latter, I'll need to know if the Gateway code is
tested and reliable, and if it will be correctly turned on if I recompile
the kernel with "options GWETHER."

--Brett




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