Subject: Re: freebsd em driver
To: Andrew R. Reiter <arr@watson.org>
From: Jonathan Stone <jonathan@DSG.Stanford.EDU>
List: tech-net
Date: 06/17/2002 11:31:50
In message <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1020617141310.11660D-100000@fledge.watson.org>,
"Andrew R. Reiter" writes:


[....]

>I am not sure if this makes a difference, but IIRC, both OpenBSD and
>FreeBSD use the Intel version of the driver (the em version).  And atleast
>FreeBSD has added a committer who is an employee from intel to maintain
>this driver.

There may be some legitimate technical reasons for netBSD to not use
the em driver. It'd likely need some rework to support
non-Intel-like I/O bussees (sparc, alpha). At least I would rather
remove the standalone media-frobbing code, and use standard NetBSD MII
(and gmii, if/when we have them) hooks.  And I'm sure other NetBSD
contributors will think of other reasons.


Myself, I just want a driver that runs at (or near) wire speed on some
of the current-generation (under US$100 and trending down) boards.
(I'm about ready to port Bill Paul's bge driver.)