Hi Luke.
>> 2. Both NE1000 and NE2000 cards come in the following
>> varieties (most of which I have examples of):
>> 1. BNC connector for coax segments at 10 Mbps.
>> 2. RJ45 connector for CAT-5 cable at 10 Mbps.
>> 3. 15-pin D-type connector for whatever suits.
>> 4. Any two of the above, selected by jumpers.
>> 5. Any two of the above, auto-detected.
>> 6. All three of the above, auto-detected.
>> As a result, your second concern is basically irrelevant.
> None of 4 my ne1000's, nor any I have ever seen have RJ-45
> connectors.
Want me to send you one? They're easy enough to get hold of round
here, as one of the local emporiums has a LARGE box full of them, and
stated that they obtained them when actioning an order to upgrade one
of the oil companies to a 100 Mbps network...
As far as the cards in my collection go, I don't have an NE1k that is
RJ-45 only, but I do have one that's both BNC and RJ-45, so I can
confirm that combination cards were made.
>>> An ne1000 driver can be done later, but to make sure that
>>> everybody can join in for now, the more popular the card
>>> the better.
>> That sort of decision appears to be a geographically based one,
>> so may not produce the result you are expecting...
> An ne2000 is a lot easier to get hold of than an ne1000
Depends where you are - here, the opposite is true...
>>> To start with, I intend to write the driver, and then some code
>>> that will tell me when a packet has arrived, if it is for this
>>> machine, and what protocol it is using. And I'll go from there.
>>> (I haven't read that far ahead ;-)
>> Probably a better decision would be to split networking into two
>> layers, with the upper layer doing everything that can be done
>> without accessing the card itself, and the lower layer doing only
>> that which can't be done without accessing the card...
> That is what I meant. There is no point at all having some
> generic code being re-written. So that when a packet comes in,
> the driver passes strait to the function that decides if it is
> at the right machine. The whole picture comes in several layers.
In that case, there shouldn't be much in the way of problems
implementing NE1k's, NE2k's and 3C503's according to what's been said,
as all three are apparently based on the same chipset, the 8390.
Best wishes from Riley.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| There is something frustrating about the quality and speed of Linux |
| development, ie., the quality is too high and the speed is too high, |
| in other words, I can implement this XXXX feature, but I bet someone |
| else has already done so and is just about to release their patch. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
* ftp://ftp.MemAlpha.cx/pub/rhw/Linux
* http://www.MemAlpha.cx/kernel.versions.html
