Re: [NILO-discuss] Zen and the art of running in real mode

[Michael B. <mb...@fe...>]

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> > Only one which isn't yet in production.  The I/O BAR is in the current
> > generation of the product in case it was needed to support PXE.  
> > Since they used Etherboot for the PXE stack, (and consequently weren't
> > restricted to portio, and could get away with essentially reusing the
> > Linux driver), the I/O bar is completely unused and will be removed in
> > the next rev.
> That also means, presumably, they're stuck with the Etherboot subset of
> PXE, which would make me guess this is a special-purpose device.  From
> the looks of it, most vendors are keeping or even adding the I/O bar,
> all while cursing the managers at Intel who apparently let a consultant
> come up with the spec without any kind of adult supervision.

Yes; it's a special-purpose device.  PXE is just there as a marketing 
checkbox.  There are some likely applications for this NIC that benefit 
from having an Etherboot driver and consequently being usable with 
LinuxBIOS.  I can't say much more without violating the NDA.

Michael