🚀 go-pugleaf

tlang@freeway.DIALix.oz.au (Tony Langdon) writes:

> It's 05 May 97  10:52,
> We'll return to mbartz@werple.net.au and All's
> discussion of ethernet cards - experience?
> 
>  mb> Linux has difficulty detecting NE2000 cards. Pass
>  mb> ``ether=11,0x240,eth0'' or whatever is appropriate for your system,
>  mb> to your kernel.
> 
> I've never had a problem with NE2000 detection, even with cheap
> clones.

Well, you have now.  -  It didn't find mine.

> Every card I've used with Linux gets autodetected (Linux often does a
> better job than the commercial OS's at hardware detection :-) ).

Yes, I go along with that.

However, from ``/etc/rc.d/rc.modules''

  # Network device support:
  # Most of these drivers will probe automatically for the card if you don't
  # specify an I/O address and IRQ.  But, the NE2000 driver needs at least the
  # I/O.  For complete information, see the net-modules.txt file that comes
  # with the Linux 2.0.0 source code.  This file can also be found on the
  # Slackware CD-ROM in the /docs/kernel.20 directory.


from ``/usr/src/linux-2.0.29/Documentation/networking/net-modules.txt''

  It is *STRONGLY RECOMMENDED* that you supply "io=" instead of autoprobing.
  If an "io=" argument is not supplied, then the ISA drivers will complain
  about autoprobing being not recommended, and begrudgingly autoprobe for
  a *SINGLE CARD ONLY* -- if you want to use multiple cards you *have* to 
  supply an "io=0xNNN,0xQQQ,..." argument.

  The ne module is an exception to the above. A NE2000 is essentially an
  8390 chip, some bus glue and some RAM. Because of this, the ne probe is
  more invasive than the rest, and so at boot we make sure the ne probe is 
  done last of all the 8390 cards (so that it won't trip over other 8390 based
  cards) With modules we can't ensure that all other non-ne 8390 cards have
  already been found. Because of this, the ne module REQUIRES an "io=0xNNN" 
  argument passed in via insmod. It will refuse to autoprobe.
                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  It is also worth noting that auto-IRQ probably isn't as reliable during 
  the flurry of interrupt activity on a running machine. Cards such as the 
  ne2000 that can't get the IRQ setting from an EEPROM or configuration
  register are probably best supplied with an "irq=M" argument as well.


Cheers,
-- 
Manfred Bartz <mbartz@werple.net.au>
  --- LINUX, live free or die ---