Thus spake Ted Lemon
> It probably depends more on what you've connected it to than anything
> else.   I've had some trouble with DE500 boards if I try to connect
> them directly to other DE500s or Intel EtherExpress cards with a null
> ethernet cable - it seems that their autosense algorithms clash with
> each other.   If I force one card into a specific mode, everything
> starts working.   As Matt (the author of the driver!) points out, if
> it's stuck in OACTIVE, it's probably autosensing.

As I said, I always force the media.  The problem I was having was that
if my connectivity supplier had a problem ant the line went down, it
would fail to come back up unless I reboot.  The NetBSD box worked
if it came up sensing the connection but it couldn't recover.  Really
annoying when the unit is running unnatended in a cage downtown.

> Matt's driver runs on FreeBSD, NetBSD and BSD/os, so I doubt that what
> you're seeing is a NetBSD-specific problem.   And you can always point
> that out to your smug FreeBSD weenie "friends" when they razz you
> about it... :')

Thanks.  I'll do just that.  :-)

I still have a feeling that it has something to do with the hub kluge
the other guy was doing.  He was doing something like this:

  -------------           ---------
  |4 port card|           |  HUB  |
  -|--|--|--|--           |       |
   |  |  |  |             |       |
   |  |  |  |--------------       |
   |  |  |-----------------       |
   |  |--------------------       |
   |-> to Internet        |       |
                          |       |
   --------               |       |
   |      |               |       |
   |  A   -----------------
   |      |               |       |
   --------               |       |
   --------               |       |
   |      |               |       |
   |  B   -----------------
   |      |               |       |
   --------               |       |
   --------               |       |
   |      |               |       |
   |  C   -----------------
   |      |               |       |
   --------               ---------

I can see how this could work (it obviously won't segment the network,
of course) but I wonder if having those 3 ports on the same physical
card would introduce problems.  I guess it would depend on how much
the ports were segregated functionally on the card.

-- 
D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@{druid|vex}.net>   |  Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/                |  and a sheep voting on
+1 416 424 2871     (DoD#0082)    (eNTP)   |  what's for dinner.