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Date:      Wed, 26 Mar 2003 11:50:00 -0800 (PST)
From:      wpaul@FreeBSD.ORG (Bill Paul)
To:        nate@root.org (Nate Lawson)
Cc:        cvs-all@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: src/sys/dev/usb umass.c
Message-ID:  <20030326195000.2FC1037B407@hub.freebsd.org>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0303261055570.27844-100000@root.org> from Nate Lawson at "Mar 26, 2003 10:59:27 am"

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> On Wed, 26 Mar 2003, Bill Paul wrote:
> > NFS diskless boot via USB ethernet.
> > 
> > ...
> > 
> > What are you all looking at me like that for.
> > 
> > -Bill
> 
> Speaking of which, the only USB 10/100 chip we support is the ADMtek
> Pegasus.  There are a ton of other 10/100 adapters out now that are
> different or support usb 2.0.  Any idea on how hard it would be to get the
> datasheets or driver support for them?  Looks like Linux doesn't support
> them either.  (Devices include the Linksys USB100M, USB200M, and Netgear
> FA101).
> 
> -Nate

The only other 10/100 USB 1.x controller that I personally know of is
the RealTek 8150. RealTek has the datasheet for this part on their
web site (www.realtek.com.tw), although it looks to be hosed right now,
so instead, check out:

http://www.freebsd.org/~wpaul/RealTek/8150v14.pdf

I gather that NetBSD already has a driver for this chip, and that somebody
was attempting to port it to FreeBSD, but I don't know whatever became of
this effort. The LinkSys USB100M seems to be using the RealTek chip.

THE USB200M is a USB 2.0 device, which seems to be using an
ASIX Electronics AX88172. The datasheet for this chip is at:

http://www.asix.com.tw/datasheet/mac/Ax88172.PDF

I also put a copy at:

http://www.freebsd.org/~wpaul/ASIX/Ax88172.PDF

The only problem with this chip is that I don't think FreeBSD supports
any USB 2.0 controllers yet. Am I wrong? It's sort of pointless to wish
for support for a USB 2.0 device if we don't even have a USB 2.0 stack.

The Netgear FA101 seems to be using the ADMTek 8511 (Pegasus II) chip.
I can't find a copy of this on www.admtek.com.tw anymore, so I put my
copy at:

http://www.freebsd.org/~wpaul/ADMtek/pegasus2.pdf

I was under the impression that somebody had modified the if_aue driver
to support Pegasus II devices though, so this adapter may already work.

If you want to know how I figured out what chips these devices use
without even seeing them, it's easy: go to the Linksys or Netgear
website and download the Windows driver, then run strings -a on it.
You'll typically see stuff like this:

C:\WinDDK\2195\src\network\ndis\ax88172\objfre\i386\ax88172.pdb

D:\NTDDK\src\network\ADM8511.205\obj\free\i386\ADM8511.pdb

No matter how hard the retail companies try to re-brand the driver
software, they always seem to leave this bit of information behind.

-Bill

--
=============================================================================
-Bill Paul            (510) 749-2329 | Senior Engineer, Master of Unix-Fu
                 wpaul@windriver.com | Wind River Systems
=============================================================================
      "If stupidity were a handicap, you'd have the best parking spot."
=============================================================================



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