[1560] in linux-net channel archive
Re: SMC Ether Power PCI
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joerg Lenneis)
Sat Dec 30 20:26:22 1995
From: lenneis@statrix2.wu-wien.ac.at (Joerg Lenneis)
To: retsam@sluh.edu
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 16:05:33 +0100 (MET)
Cc: linux-net@vger.rutgers.edu
> >
> > Hi,
>
> Good morning Jacque, hopefully I can be of some assistance.
>
> > Does anyone know if Linux supports the Ether power PCI
> > Ethernet adapter? I recently purchased one because I heard that linux
> > did support it. I've re compiled my kernel to include all the SMC
> > cards but it didnt mention the etherpower and Linux did not recognize
> > the card. Is there a kern patch or something that I can get to use
> > this card? Any information would be greatly appreciated!!!
>
> You probably are experiencing the same problems that we recently ran
> into. It would appear that SMC has subtlely changed the EtherPower
> line of cards. This is causing some difficulty and confusion in the
> community.
>
> When my team began vending PCI ethernet cards our primary concern was
> the need for them to be supported by the Linux kernel. I spoke with
> Donald Becker about the issue and he spoke highly of the SMC
> EtherPower card. The original versions were based on the 21040
> chipset by DEC which was codenamed the 'tulip' chip.
>
> We just vended three additional workstations from Gateway 2000 and of
> course specified the EtherPower cards. We installed one machine about
> three weeks ago and when it was booted it began complaining about an
> unknown PCI device on the bus. This was with the 1.2.13 kernel which
> had the 21040/tulip driver compiled into it. It quickly became
> apparent which device was unknown when ifconfig was unable to
> configure the eth0 interface.
>
> After opening the computer and examining the card it quickly became
> apparent what the difficulty was. Clearly stamped on the chip was the
> fact that the chipset had been changed to the 21041. We went through
> the packing materials and sure enough there was a one page blurb which
> stated that the appearance of the card was different and that we
> should load the 'latest' Novell/Window drivers for optimum
> performance.
[deleted]
There might also be a more benign reason for the kernel not recognising the
Etherpower. The query for the driver is at the moment commented out in the
configuration script. If you omitted this, find the line in the file
linux/drivers/net/Config.in which reads
# tristate 'DEC 21040 PCI support' CONFIG_DEC_ELCP
and erase the '#'. The prompt for that driver then appears in the subsection
'EISA, VLB, PCI and on board controllers' of the configuration (not with the
rest of the SMC cards). Of course, you might still have problems with the
chipset being a 21041, as pointed out by G. Wettstein.
Good luck,
--
Joerg Lenneis
University of Economics and Business Adminstration
Department for Applied Statistics and Data Processing
Augasse 2-6, 1090 Vienna, Austria
Tel. *43/1/31336 4758
email: lenneis@wu-wien.ac.at
