Module support for Broadcom ethernet

[Rick Stevens]

James Kosin wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Geoffrey Leach wrote:
> 
> | I notice that the module that supports the Broadcom 5700 chip is
> | tg3.ko, rather than bcm/bcm5700.ko, which is what you get when you
> | build from the standard kernel sources (i.e., not rpm source).
> |
> | Anyone know the reason for this?
> |
> The reason is that the driver is a generic tg3 chip driver.  Most
> Ethernet and other drivers use known chip-sets to drive the hardware.
> If you look carefully inside, you may see a chip on the board that
> lists TG3 on the chip.
> 
> The reason for not having it be bcm5700.ko is you would end up with a
> lot of modules with bcm5700.ko, bcm5702.ko, bcm5800.ko, etc.  That may
> be identical in every way.  With a module named tg3.ko you can use the
> same driver for many products that use the TG3 chip-set.

Not true.  For example, the aic7xxx.ko driver covers a LOT of the
Adaptec SCSI chipsets and the aic79xx.ko covers a lot of others.
Broadcom's source compiles to bcm57xx.ko for the same reason.

Depending on the type of switch at the other end of the cable, we've had
problems at times with the tg3 driver.  Sometimes it just drops the
connection.  Sometimes it just yo-yos up and down due to autonegotiation
issues (normally a battle between half- and full-duplex).  Switching to
Broadcom's drivers solved these issues for us in most cases.  Sometimes
it took turning off autonegotiation and forcing the desired modes at
both ends of the cable.  YMMV.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
----------------------------------------------------------------------