[Etherboot-developers] Status of 32515 for non PNP Bioses

[Timothy L. <tl...@ro...>]

Hi

I thought I would give an update in my work on the 3c515 for non PNP 
devices.  I am happy to report that I have managed to enable the card on 
a non PNP bios.  The Etherboot probed, and found the card, but reported 
the incorrect Node address.  I modified the dhcpd.conf file to the 
incorrect address, and the kernel was sucessfully transfered and booted. 
 At the dhcpclient stage, I had to modify the dhcpd.conf file back to 
the correct node address (as found by Becker's Linux module).  From 
there it finished the boot process and started the X server.  It may be 
interesting to note, that the node address reported was the serial 
number that the PNP code had found.

Needless to say, there is still a little work left to do, but it does 
not seem insurmountable anymore.  The ISAPNP code has been instramental 
in this, but I have never seen a more confusing piece of code.  I am at 
a loss to say how it works, and I am surprized that I was able to make 
heads or tails of it.

I guess I am a lot better off than I was just a couple of months ago, 
when I realized that the brand new card I bought off ebay, was 
unsupported by Etherboot. ;-)

Regards

Tim