RE: Intel SE7320VP2 board + Marvell 88E8050 nic.

From: Ted Mittelstaedt (tedm_at_toybox.placo.com)
Date: 06/26/05

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    To: <jaco@coocoo.za.net>
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 11:10:58 -0700

    >-----Original Message-----
    >From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
    >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Jaco van Tonder
    >Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2005 5:41 AM
    >To: Ted Mittelstaedt
    >Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
    >Subject: Re: Intel SE7320VP2 board + Marvell 88E8050 nic.
    >
    >
    >Ted Mittelstaedt typed on a keyboard not too far away, on 6/26/2005
    >11:29 AM:
    >> The 88E8050 is a PCI Express nic, the Marvel chip that Dmitry listed
    >> the 88E8001, is a regular PCI chip. Here are the spec sheets
    >on these:
    >>
    >> [...]
    >
    >Thank you Ted. I will have a look at these now.
    >
    >>
    >> The SE7320VP2 motherboard uses the E7320 chipset
    >(Lindenhurst) Support
    >> for the memory-mapped PCI Express configuration mechanism was added to
    >> FreeBSD 5 in December 2004 for only the Grantsdale and Lindenhurst
    >> chipsets.
    >> You can see the complete comment for this here:
    >>
    >> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/i386/pci/pci_cfgreg.c
    >>
    >> This first showed up in the FreeBSD 5.4 release.
    >
    >Brilliant. I am planning on using FreeBSD 5-STABLE on this machine. ;)
    >Thank you for this confirmation.
    >
    >>
    >> The first problem is that the sk0 driver most likely does not
    >> have the pci chip ID in it for the onboard Marvel 88E8050.
    >It might be
    >> possible to get this with pciconf and add it to the if_sk code in
    >> usr/src/sys/pci to get the driver to attach.
    >
    >Hmm. I read on Bjoern A. Zeeb's pages that this card is not
    >supported by
    >the FreeBSD sk driver. Also, the method that you suggested was tried
    >previously and unfortunately it does not work. :(
    >

    Yes, that was mentioned here:

    http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2005-January/071205.
    html

    >Here is a link to the message containing some info and links to
    >Bjoern's
    >pages:
    >http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hardware/2005-April/0
    >02405.html
    >
    >> If your really lucky then the sk driver will be able to set it up.
    >> If your not as lucky then the driver might need to use the
    >configuration
    >> mechanism to setup the hardware, in which case you probably can
    >> e-mail Scott Long for some patches. If your really unlucky then
    >> the 2 chipsets are way too different and you would need to write in
    >> support to the sk device driver.
    >
    >I am not sure if anyone is actually working on this driver.

    You didn't read the rest of the thread, apparently, see here:

    http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hardware/2005-April/002409.htm
    l

    > But, I will
    >e-mail Scott like you suggested. Maybe he knows about a way to
    >make it work.
    >

    I didn't know about Bjoern's message, you should e-mail him first
    and get his patch and see if FreeBSD 5.4 detects the Marvel. He
    mentioned that it did but only the PHY worked? See if you can get
    that far before mailing Scott.

    I found 2 links claiming that the sk98lin Linux driver from Syskonnect
    work with this card, see here:

    http://www.leenooks.com/251
    http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0502.1/0010.html

    The Linux driver is here
    http://www.syskonnect.com/syskonnect/support/driver/
    and it appears to be a huge patch that applies to the Linux sk source
    code.
    It does add support for the 88E8050 card. (at least the 6.24 driver
    does)

    The FreeBSD version of the SK-98 card driver from Syskonnect is here:

    http://www.syskonnect.com/syskonnect/support/driver/

    This is NOT a source driver like the Syskonnect Linux driver. This
    driver creates the yk interface.

    Interestingly enough, there is an old post in the FreeBSD Hackers
    mailing list here:

    http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/2003-July/002020.html

    that appears to be from a developer (Gerald Heinig) within Syskonnect
    itself
    asking for help in writing this very same driver. You might e-mail him
    and
    ask for the source, or ask if this driver will work with the Marvel
    88E8050 card. Or in fact if that driver could be easily moded for
    use with the 88E8050.

    While Syskonnect only states this is for their SK-98xx and SK-95xx
    Gigabit
    adapter, please try it and let us know if it works for the Marvel
    adapter.

    There is no licensing file for either driver so general copyright only
    applies (meaning no restrictions on reverse engineering it)

    The official Marvel driver for Linux is here:

    http://www.marvell.com/drivers/driverSearchResults.do

    This is a source-only driver, and although it's license disallows
    reverse engineering, the license also is limited to:

    ""Deliverables" means the software accompanying this Agreement in
    executable or binary form"

    so I am not sure it applies. It also appears to be a copy of the
    Syskonnet sk98lin driver, although instead of a giant patch, it is
    the actual patched source files. And within the actual source files
    we find GPL language.

    It might be that Bjoern didn't want to look at the sk98lin driver
    for fear of violating a license? Seems to me not to be much
    worry of that here since it seems Marvel simply applied the unlicensed
    Syskonnect code to Linux GPL'd code and posted the resulting source under
    a
    license that restricts itself only to binary files! :-)

    I would assume one could review the Syskonnect/Marvel Linux source and
    see what needs to be done in the FreeBSD sk driver to activate the
    88E8050 adapter card.

    The very best thing would be to have Syskonnect simply give the source
    to the FreeBSD Project for inclusion in FreeBSD, they can retain the
    copyright like many other drivers do. I would e-mail Gerald about that.

    >I know that the other Intel NIC is supported. I saw it in the supported
    >hardware list for FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE. ;) If the Marvell Card turns out
    >to be really bad news, I will just slot in another one of these. :)
    >
    >>
    >> Do you have 5.4 running on this motherboard at the current time?
    >
    >No, I wanted to hear from somebody that FreeBSD will actually support
    >this hardware before I buy it. I am really not planning on running some
    >mickey mouse linux version on this. :P
    >

    Based on the April thread that Bjoern posted, not in the FreeBSD
    sk driver at this time. Only, possibly, in the binary-only from
    Syskonnect.

    >Ted. Thanks a lot for your input. :)
    >

    Your welcome!

    Ted

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