linux-apus-devel

Ethernet support

[Rudi C. <ru...@am...>]

Hi there.

I've been looking at APUS' support for Zorro Ethernet cards and it
doesn't seem that encouraging. The FAQ, which is quite old, lists only
the A2065, the AriadneI/II and the Hydra as supported.

I was interested in getting an X-Surf, but apparently there's no driver
for it. I know that it comes with full programming documentation and that
it shouldn't be impossible to adapt an existing driver for Realtek
chipsets, but these days time definitely isn't something I have plenty
of. ;(((

The AriadneII could be the second option, but the FAQ says it runs at 10%
the speed of the Amiga (SANA) driver. Have things improved in the
meantime? The cards also seem to be harder to find, BTW.

I could look for a second-hand Hydra, but as far as I know it has only
BNC and my hub only has RJ45 (and thus I'd need an expensive adaptor).
Ouch.

Then there's the IOBlix and its Ethernet module. The card isn't listed in
the FAQ at all, but I've found in the mailing list archives that a few
weeks ago a driver for the serial port(s) was added. No driver for the
Ethernet module, though, so this is pretty much the same as with the
X-Surf. Last but not least, the two cost roughly twice as much as the
X-Surf (based on Software Hut's listings). Double ouch. And I wouldn't
use the serial/parallel ports at all (triple ouch).

Any suggestions?

-- 
 "A true zen saying, nothing is what I want"               (Frank Zappa)
 Rudi Chiarito         SGML/XML, user interface, i18n         Amiga Inc.
 ru...@am...                                        http://amiga.com/

Re: Ethernet support

[Ken T. <ke...@we...>]

On Sun, 30 Jul 2000, Rudi Chiarito wrote:

> I was interested in getting an X-Surf, but apparently there's no driver

What is X-Surf ?  What speed is it, 10, 100 (gigabit ;) ? 

> for it. I know that it comes with full programming documentation and that
> it shouldn't be impossible to adapt an existing driver for Realtek
> chipsets, but these days time definitely isn't something I have plenty
> of. ;(((

Ken.

Re: Ethernet support

[Geert U. <ge...@li...>]

On Mon, 31 Jul 2000, Ken Tyler wrote:
> On Sun, 30 Jul 2000, Rudi Chiarito wrote:
> > I was interested in getting an X-Surf, but apparently there's no driver
> 
> What is X-Surf ?  What speed is it, 10, 100 (gigabit ;) ? 

AFAIK all Amiga Ethernet cards are 10 Mbps only. These days the RTL8019AS
(an ISA chip) seems to be the best choice since it's very cheap and doesn't
require much glue to connect to the Zorro bus.

Faster Ethernet chips are usually PCI and require PCI busmastering to work,
which is a bit more complex than the simple Zorro-PCI FPGA bridges used in
graphics cards with PCI graphics chips. But it can be done: the DKB Wildfire
accelerator must have a better PCI bus since it seems to have a DEC21041
on-board (from looking at pictures, never saw one IRL, nor do I know anyone who
owns one).

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- ge...@li...

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds

Re: Ethernet support

[Alan B. <al...@ms...>]

hi,

> > I was interested in getting an X-Surf, but apparently there's no driver
> 
> What is X-Surf ?  What speed is it, 10, 100 (gigabit ;) ? 

its a Zorro card that has an ISA ethernet card as part of its design. it
also has clockports and IO ports . Its been out for about 4 months now (or
so...) so I'd expect a lot mroe requests regarding this hardware to
appear.

alan

Re: Ethernet support

[Geert U. <ge...@li...>]

On Sun, 30 Jul 2000, Rudi Chiarito wrote:
> I've been looking at APUS' support for Zorro Ethernet cards and it
> doesn't seem that encouraging. The FAQ, which is quite old, lists only
> the A2065, the AriadneI/II and the Hydra as supported.

And PCMCIA NE2000 clones through the apne driver?

The Hydra driver is probably no longer functional, since it's been a while ago
that it actually compiled, IIRC.

> I was interested in getting an X-Surf, but apparently there's no driver
> for it. I know that it comes with full programming documentation and that
> it shouldn't be impossible to adapt an existing driver for Realtek
> chipsets, but these days time definitely isn't something I have plenty
> of. ;(((

Which Realtek chip? I guess the RTL8019AS? That would be the most logical
choice.

If that's the case, you probably have to change only a few of the first 16
#define's in ariadne2.c and replace ZORRO_PROD_VILLAGE_TRONIC_ARIADNE2 by the
Zorro ID of the X-Surf (0x12121700, if I'm not mistaken). All the rest in the
driver is plain NE2000 stuff.

Is the full programming documentation available in electronic form? If you
send it to me, I might even adapt ariadne2.c myself...

> The AriadneII could be the second option, but the FAQ says it runs at 10%
> the speed of the Amiga (SANA) driver. Have things improved in the
> meantime? The cards also seem to be harder to find, BTW.

That's weird. AFAIK the Ariadne II driver gets nearly 1 MB/s if you have a
fast CPU. Since that's close to the theoretical limit of Ethernet, I don't
think there's much area for improvement.

> Any suggestions?

Buy an X-surf, and get it to work :-)

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- ge...@li...

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds

Re: Ethernet support

[Rudi C. <ru...@am...>]

On Sun, Jul 30, 2000 at 09:04:31PM +0200, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> > I've been looking at APUS' support for Zorro Ethernet cards and it
> > doesn't seem that encouraging. The FAQ, which is quite old, lists only
> > the A2065, the AriadneI/II and the Hydra as supported.
> And PCMCIA NE2000 clones through the apne driver?

That's another thing that puzzled me. Chapter 6 of the FAQ, located at
<ftp://linux-apus.sourceforge.net/pub/linux-apus/docs/working.html>,
makes no mention of any PCMCIA hardware. There's a mention though at
<ftp://linux-apus.sourceforge.net/pub/linux-apus/docs/getting-the-kernel.html#INCLUDED-HARDWARE-DRIVERS>

> Which Realtek chip? I guess the RTL8019AS? That would be the most logical
> choice.

http://www.jschoenfeld.com/products/xsurf_e.htm only mentions "Realtek
chipset". Though it also says "all programming docs open (for
Linux-drivers)".

> Is the full programming documentation available in electronic form? If you
> send it to me, I might even adapt ariadne2.c myself...

I'll inquiry individual Computers.

> > The AriadneII could be the second option, but the FAQ says it runs at 10%
> > the speed of the Amiga (SANA) driver. Have things improved in the
> > meantime? The cards also seem to be harder to find, BTW.
> That's weird. AFAIK the Ariadne II driver gets nearly 1 MB/s if you have a
> fast CPU. Since that's close to the theoretical limit of Ethernet, I don't
> think there's much area for improvement.

I was just reporting what the FAQ says. Maybe the above is based on an
older version of the driver?

> > Any suggestions?
> Buy an X-surf, and get it to work :-)

I'll try that. The problem is that I've already had to mess too much with
Linux sources lately, hacking others' stuff (RedHat's) while I'm supposed
to do something else. ;) The bug-fixing procedure was so cumbersome and
painful that I don't feel like getting into anything similar anytime
soon. Hopefully, with the helpful explanations you made, it won't take
much effort. ;)

-- 
 "A true zen saying, nothing is what I want"               (Frank Zappa)
 Rudi Chiarito         SGML/XML, user interface, i18n         Amiga Inc.
 ru...@am...                                        http://amiga.com/

Re: Ethernet support

[Michel <dae...@st...>]

Rudi Chiarito wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Jul 30, 2000 at 09:04:31PM +0200, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> > > I've been looking at APUS' support for Zorro Ethernet cards and it
> > > doesn't seem that encouraging. The FAQ, which is quite old, lists only
> > > the A2065, the AriadneI/II and the Hydra as supported.
> > And PCMCIA NE2000 clones through the apne driver?
> 
> That's another thing that puzzled me. Chapter 6 of the FAQ, located at
> <ftp://linux-apus.sourceforge.net/pub/linux-apus/docs/working.html>,
> makes no mention of any PCMCIA hardware. There's a mention though at
> <ftp://linux-apus.sourceforge.net/pub/linux-apus/docs/getting-the-kernel.html#INCLUDED-HARDWARE-DRIVERS>

The FAQ hasn't been updated or maintained for a very long time...


Michel


-- 
Life is a journey.
 Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
______________________________________________________________________________
Earthling Michel Dänzer (MrCooper)  \  CS student and free software enthusiast
Debian GNU/Linux (powerpc,i386) user \   member of XFree86, Team *AMIGA*, AUGS