[linuxkernelnewbies] Linux Network Drivers

[peter teoh]

http://www.linuxgrill.com/anonymous/netutils/becker/index.scyld.html Linux Network Drivers Notice: Due to the expiration of the USRA-CESDIS contract on July 5 2000 many of these pages have moved with Donald Becker and the Beowulf team to Scyld or the Scyld-hosted beowulf.org site. Please update your links and text references before this host is removed from service. http://www.scyld.com is the new primary site for information on and updates to the Linux Ethernet device drivers. This site may contain obsolete information. Linux has driver support for all current production, mass-market PCI Ethernet and Fast Ethernet chips as of July 5, 2000. While a few specific boards are not supported because e.g. of unique transceiver interfaces, they are rare exceptions. Most common Gigabit Ethernet adapters are supported as well. Index Cluster Adapters. Gigabit Ethernet. Fast Ethernet. Ethernet Device Drivers. PCI Ethernet Device Drivers. ISA Ethernet Device Drivers. PC Card (PCMCIA and CardBus) Ethernet Device Drivers (new and updated drivers only). Note: PCMCIA device drivers are tied to a particular Socket Services version and thus are separately distributed from Sourceforge or ftp://hyper.stanford.edu/pub/pcmcia/. A few of these drivers were not written by me, even though most include my name on the author list by virtue of starting from my skeleton driver or including generic code. You should contact the other listed authors for updates or bugfixes for those drivers. --Donald Becker, bec...@scyld.com. Other Major Sites for Linux Network Information Linux Networking News (Alan Cox) ARCnet for Linux Linux-ATM Site (Werner Almsesberger) Alternate Linux-ATM FTP Site IP over SCSI (experimental). Linux Token Ring Project Quick index to driver pages by speed. Gigabit Ethernet  Packet Engines "Yellowfin" GNIC, and the related 100Mbps-only Symbios SYM885 SCSI+Ethernet chip.  Packet Engines "Hamachi" GNIC-II. The Alteon AceNIC driver (3Com 3c985, Netgear GA620) is available in the Linux 2.2.0 kernel distribution or from the CERN AceNIC Linux driver page. The SysKonnect driver is available directly from the SysKonnect web site. Contact Intel directly for the Linux driver for their gigabit card. They have a non-GPL driver. Because of the license conflict this driver may not be pre-linked or pre-patched into the Linux kernel. Fast Ethernet (and FE boards with 10mbps-only transceivers) Digital DC21*4* Tulip chip based cards, and work-alike chips from Lite-On, LinkSys, MXIC and ASIX. 3Com PCI EtherLink PCI and EISA cards, the 3c590 and 3c900/905 series.  Intel EtherExpress Pro100B, Pro100+ and Pro10+ PCI (Note: This driver is for PCI cards only!)  3c515 ISA Fast EtherLink card. SMC EtherPower II (EPIC/100 83c170 chip) driver. RealTek RTL8129/8139 driver. Supports various low-end private-label boards, including the SMC-1211 and Accton EN1207D-TX (Note: the 1207C uses tulip.c). Lite-On LC82c168 PNIC driver Now merged with the Tulip driver. Lite-On PNIC, Macronix, ASIX, ADMtek Comet and STmicro drivers are now merged with the Tulip driver. VIA Rhine (VT86C100A and 3043) driver. Note: The D-Link DFE-530TX board uses this driver, while the DE-530TX board uses the Tulip driver. Winbond w89c840 driver (beta test). Notes: This board has low transmit performance. The Compex RL100ATX board uses this driver (most other Compex boards are NE2000 clones). TI ThunderLAN driver (external link -- Caldera/James Banks). Hewlett Packard 100VG driver updates (external link -- Yaroslav). Adaptec DuraLAN (AKA "Starfire") driver. Davicom Semiconductor directly distributes their Linux DM9102 driver. Note: the DM9101 is a transceiver, not a controller. Sundance Technologies "Sundance Alta" driver. The SiS 7016 and SiS 900 driver is available directly from SiS or in the 2.2.13 and later kernels. Note: ISA boards based on the DP83800 are not supported due to the non-availability of documentation for this chip. 10mbps Ethernet Drivers (New and updated versions) Many additional drivers are in the current kernel. If an update is available here it's probably to fix a specific problems, and not to make major unstable changes in a driver. Intel EtherExpress Pro/10 PCI driver (remote link).  3c509/3c529/3c579 ISA/MCA/EISA EtherLink III driver update. The driver now detects multiple cards when loaded as a module. AMD LANCE/PCnet driver update. The driver is now usable as a loadable module. Cirrus/Crystal/IBM CS8900 series driver (remote link). PCI NE2000 driver (local page) Note: This driver supports the RTL8029. Do not use the 'rtl8029.c' driver which just a improperly renamed copy of an old 'ne.c' driver. PCI NE2000 updates (remote link) Note: ISA boards based on the DP83800 are not supported due to the unavailability of documentation for this chip. Parallel Port "pocket" Ethernet Adapters Pocket Ethernet based on Realtek chips. Driver updated to load as a module, use the standard "ethN" name, and work with new adapters using the RTL8012 chip. Accton parallel port ethernet driver. This driver is maintained by nils.faer...@unix-ag.org, with additional support from Matthias Kasimir. Earlier contributions were from Michael Engel, Ron Smits and Volker Meyer-zu-Bexten, with contributions by Richard Krakhofer. An older version of the driver is retained locally as accton.tgz. Cluster Drivers The following adapters are designed for very high speed, short distance networking. They are typically used in computational clusters, server farms, or storage systems. Giganet cLAN Myricom Myrinet Dolphinics PCI-SCI cards. Common Problems and Fixes Detailed instructions for building and loading driver modules PCI interrupt sharing and resolving PCI IRQ conflicts Support Programs Ethercard Setup Programs Ethercard Diagnostic Programs PCI NE2000 updates (Paul Gortmaker) Setting Full-duplex on some NE2000 clones (Jeffrey Carter) Support Information Fast Networking technology information PCI Ethernet Device Drivers and Documentation Digital "Tulip" driver for DEC 21*4*-based boards. This page contains the instructions and updated drivers for SMC EtherPower and others PCI Ethernet and Fast Ethernet adatpers. Driver development is reported on the Tulip development.   "Vortex" and "Boomerang" EtherLink III PCI/EISA (3c590 3c592 3c595 3c597 3c900 and 3c905) driver. This is a driver for the 3Com 100Mbs PCI and EISA ethercards. With a description and instructions. Written by me, Donald Becker. Intel EtherExpress Pro 100 driver. This is a new driver for the Intel EtherExpress Pro 100B and PCI Pro/10+ boards with the i82557 chip. Note that this is not for the older Pro 10 or Pro 100A boards. Intel EtherExpress Pro/10 PCI (w/ i82596 chip) driver -- NEW!. This is a driver for the Intel PCI EtherExpress Pro/10 with the i82596 chip written by John Stalba, sta...@raster.ed.ray.com. Note that this is not for the Pro/10+ boards that use i82557 chip (use the EEPro100 driver instead) , or for the ISA EEPro10 with the i82595 chip (see the ISA section below). TI ThunderLAN driver (external link -- Caldera/James Banks). The "TLAN" TNETE100PCE chip, rarely seen except on the Compaq "Integrated NetFlex-3 10 T UTP Module" PCI NE2000 driver. See also the PCI NE2000 updates (remote link). Packet Engines "Yellowfin" G-NIC driver SMC EtherPower II (EPIC/100 83c170 chip) driver. RealTek RTL8129/8139 driver. Adaptec DuraLAN (AKA "Starfire") driver. Pointers to Other Ethercard Drivers Intel EtherExpress Pro/10 ISA (i82595) updated driver Crystal/Cirrus/IBM-EtherJet CS89[02] device driver. A Linux driver for Crystal LAN Ethernet chips, as used on several IBM products, written for and maintained by Crystal Semiconductor. Written By Russell Nelson of Crynwr Software.  Updated 3Com EtherLink (3c5*9) driver with Plug-and-Play patch. With a description and instructions. This update is only needed with the 1.2.* kernel and the 3c509B. Written by me, Donald Becker.  A driver for the 3Com 3c515 ISA Fast EtherLink card. Written by me, Donald Becker. NI5010 driver Written by Jan-Pascal van Best . Updated SMC Ultra / SMC EtherEZ driver for 1.2.13. Now with Programmed-I/O (in addition to the original ISA "high memory") support. This driver update source file is for kernels 1.2.13 through 1.3.90. This is a drop-in replacement for drivers/net/smc-ultra.c. The 2.0.0 kernels already include these changes. Written by me, Donald Becker. Other Ethercard Drivers These drivers are either unreleased, in alpha test, incorporated in some other package, or here for historical reasons.  A driver for the 3Com 3c515 ISA Fast EtherLink card. Written by me, Donald Becker. A driver for SMC-91c92 PCMCIA ethernet adapters. This driver supports the Megahertz X-Jack PCMCIA ethercard, and may support others with the SMC 9000 series chips as well. This driver is now distributed as part of David Hind's PCMCIA package. You should use that version in preference to the one here. HP PC-LAN+ (27247 and 27252A) driver. This is a driver for the recent HP 8390-based ethercards. Don't confuse these with the PC-LAN-non-'+' or the HP2405J PCnet/LANCE card. Details of the driver are here. Written by me, Donald Becker. Zenith Z-Note and IBM ThinkPad built-in network. Written by me, Donald Becker. Ansel Communications AC3200 EISA adaptor. Written by me, Donald Becker. Non License-Conforming Drivers Several drivers have been distributed that are little more than renamed versions of my drivers. Some have my name, the copyright notice or the Gnu GPL license notice removed. The less flagrant violations merely fail to note that the driver has been modified from the original version. (The GPL requires such a note.) Here is a mapping from the bogus driver name to the official name: mpx5030.c rtl8139.c smc1211.c rtl8139.c rtl8029.c ne2k-pci.c Unsupported boards Linux now supports almost every current-production PCI Fast and Gigabit Ethernet chip! The exceptions are generally unique boards based on supported chips: Boards using the Digital Tulip chip must have a correct media table in the EEPROM. The Tulip driver has explicit support for almost all boards with old-style EEPROM contents, but this isn't assured. There is no plan to support the obsolete Intel EtherExpressPro 100A, which hasn't been produced in years. No board with an on-board processor is supported, because these invariably have a proprietary/undocumented interface. (EEPro Server and Matrox multiport PCI switch cards fall into this category.) The discontinued Essential Communications Gigabit Ethernet board is not supported. The Intel Gigabit Ethernet board will be supported by an Intel-written driver, currently in preparation. Contact Intel directly for more information. The announced (by not yet available) Sun "GEM" Gigabit Ethernet chip is not supported due to lack of documentation. Of course we can't make any claims about not-yet-introduced chips. Token Ring The 2.0.* kernels include support for most common ISA adapters. All Token Ring information is now maintained at the Linux Token Ring Project web page at http://www.linuxtr.net. Olicom driver 1999 Half Year Summary New driver work this year included completion of the Adaptec Starfire driver, converting additional drivers to support CardBus cards, and expanding existing drivers to support additional chips. The AceNIC driver from Jes Sorenson and SysKonnect's internally written driver rounds out the Gigabit Ethernet support. Only Intel remains without a released driver, although rumor has it that they have one internally. 1998 Summary My driver work in 1998 included new drivers for the Packet Engines "Hamachi" GNIC-II, VIA "Rhine" VT86c100, and Winbond W89c840. Most of my other PCI drivers were significantly reworked to support the new 2.2.* kernel structure. The new probe structure not only allows forward compatibility with the new kernels, it makes it easier to support branded and work-alike (e.g. clones) of existing designs. As an example of the wide device support needed in a single driver, the Tulip driver currently supports six unique chips from Digital, and Tulip-like chips from Lite-On, Macronix, and ASIX. Branded versions of these chips are sold by LinkSys, Compex and Netgear. 1998 work also included tested CardBus support for two additional drivers (EPIC and Tulip), significant extentions to support new hardware with the 3Com PCI and Tulip drivers, and work-in-progress on the HAL Synfinity mesh adapter. Other resources Gigabit/100mbps Networking (Fast Ethernet) Technologies 10mbps Ethernet Technologies IrDA Infrared serial communication Charles Spurgeon's 100Mbs Ethernet Guide Dan Kegel's Fast Ethernet page U.N.H. Fast Ethernet Consortium An Introduction to Auto-Negotiation (nee NWay) media type auto-selection scheme, written by Bill Bunch of National Semiconductor. The CERN High-Speed-Interconnect page Top Author:Donald Becker, bec...@scyld.com CESDIS is located at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt MD.