Re: 3c90x drivers

[Markus Gutschke <markus@gutschke.com>]

> I'm sorry about the confusion. Linux loves being in PnP mode with all the
> 3c90x cards I've tried (at least in 2.2.14), but etherboot fails to detect
> the card if bios is PnP. I don't know why, but it does. Since my machines
> are also running rsynced copies of win95B, the only way the hardware stays
> reliable is if bios is in PnP. I've tried just about every solution I can
> think of to make win95 check the hardware setting rather than assuming
> it's same as it was last time, but only PnP works. Fine, I can accept
> that, but the etherboot driver doesn't work in PnP environments.

For PnP cards, etherboot would have to run full PnP discovery and
configuration. This is not incredibly difficult, but it is inherently
less reliable than accessing non-PnP cards. The biggest problems
result from possible resource conflicts that were not detected during
etherboot's PnP configuration phase. Also, once etherboot is done
using the card, it will have to disable the PnP card again; I don't
know how easy that is. I looked at PnP specs a couple of years ago,
but I forgot all the ugly details (I guess, that's what you have to do
if you want to stay sane).


Markus

-- 
Markus Gutschke                                Resonate, Inc.
3637 Fillmore Street #106                      385 Moffett Park Drive
San Francisco, CA 94123-1600                   Sunnyvale, CA 94089
+1-415-567-8449                                +1-408-548-5528
markus@gutschke.com                            mgutschk@resonate.com
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