Davicom 9102AF (dmfe) / Alladin V IDE(ali15xx) on sparc64(v100/Netra-x)

[Eugene San <eugenesan@gmail.com>]

Probem with Davicom91xx ethernet NIC on sparc64(v100/Netra-x) is well 
known (google ::dmfe+sparc).
The problem is that specific driver (dmfe)  can be loaded but once used 
couses errors on PCI/sabre and at the end couses Kernel Panic.
Some pepole advice using (tulip) wich loads but fails to work normaly: 
it works at ~10Mbps in 10BaseT4 mode while all other modes brings
huge amount of carierr/TX errors and VERY low throuput(sometimes less 
then 50Kbps) and after some time at mid/high load driver fails
with some kind of TX errors.
Another problem is with DMA on Alladin V wich used on thoses machines.
Usualy kernel unable to boot if strated without ide=nodma. If DMA 
set-on  after boot is often couses data loses.

Bothe problems well known for a long time but somehow not treated till now.
The problems exists in kernels since 2.4.17 up to latest 2.6.11 ( all 
versions in that range tested by me :-( )

I wonder if there anything that can be done to make those sparc64 
machines usable with linux.

Thanks ahead.