On Wed, 03 Mar 1999 15:50:06 -0800 
 "R. C. Dowdeswell" <elric@mabelode.imrryr.org> wrote:

 > I have a card that is recognised as a "Lite-On Communications
 > product 0x0002".  It is a Linksys card.  Is this equivalent to
 > another card or would a new driver need to be written?
 > 
 > I remember some discussion about the NetGear FA310TX switching to
 > a different chip.  Is this "almost" compat with a Dec 21x4x?  And
 > if so would this card work on -current, and how hard would it be
 > to backport the driver to the 1.3.x branch?

Yes, it's the same chip as the new NetGear cards.  My message applies
to them, as well.  Support for the chip must be written, and adding
support in the current "de" driver would be horribly painful.  My decision
to rewrite it from scratch was based on:

	(1) Need to support clone chips.

	(2) Historically, the "de" driver has had many problems, continues
	    to have problems, and these problems often aren't addressed
	    fast enough.

	(3) The driver needs to be split up into a core back-end, and
	    PCI, EISA, and CardBus front-ends.

	(4) The "de" driver is horribly over-complex, and is a maze of
	    twisty #ifdef's.

	(5) Changing the "de" driver to use the generic MII code would
	    require MANY changes to its structure.

Your chip is not yet supported in -current.  I expect to have something in
the next couple of weeks.  (I _WANTED_ to have something last week, but
some unfortunate scheduling problems arised.)

It will be basically impossible to back-port to 1.3.x, for the same reasons
as the 3c905B driver.

        -- Jason R. Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>