Garrett D'Amore - sun microsystems wrote: > Template Version: @(#)sac_nextcase 1.68 02/23/09 SMI > This information is Copyright 2010 Sun Microsystems > 1. Introduction > 1.1. Project/Component Working Name: > EOF elxl > 1.2. Name of Document Author/Supplier: > Author: Garrett D'Amore > 1.3 Date of This Document: > 05 January, 2010 > 4. Technical Description > > elxl is a closed source driver supporting certain legacy ethernet cards > from 3Com. (The 3c905 line, and a few compatible family members.) Note > that these NICs were not used on any Sun branded equipment, and have not > been popular for many years. They are still available from discounters who > have been selling refurbs and surplus, but are no longer manufactured. (3Com > stopped offering these products in 2006.)
Given how widespread these were and the fact it is/was also a well supported network device on Linux and *BSD I'm a bit nervous about removing support for this. The reason I have this card is because it is/was well supported. I still have an OpenSolaris machine running snv_129 with a card driven by elxl in it (100BASE-TX not 10BASE-2 or 10BASE-T). Yes it is old and yes I could afford to buy a newer card (there is actually a second card driven by rlts in the machine) but why should I have to ? Is this driver actually holding back other work ? Or is it just old and not getting to benefit from new features ? If it isn't holding other things back I'm not sure there is good motivation for an EOF and removal. I understand the desire to remove any 10BASE-2 or 10BASE-T support but there are cards out there driven by this driver that support 100BASE-T (3Com 3c905B 100BaseTX Cyclone, 0x9055). -- Darren J Moffat
