From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "H. Peter Anvin" Subject: Re: Univeral Protocol Driver (using UNDI) in Linux Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 09:49:42 -0700 Message-ID: <44D76F26.9@zytor.com> References: <292693080608070339p6b42feacw9d8f27a147cf1771@mail.gmail.com> <44D7579D.1040303@zytor.com> <292693080608070911g57ae1215qd994e03b9dd87b66@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <292693080608070911g57ae1215qd994e03b9dd87b66@mail.gmail.com> Sender: linux-net-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed" To: Daniel Rodrick Cc: Linux Newbie , kernelnewbies , linux-net@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Daniel Rodrick wrote: > > Agreed. But still having a single driver for all the NICs would be > simply GREAT for my setup, in which all the PCs will be booted using > PXE only. So apart from performance / relilability issues, what are > the technical roadblocks in this? > > I'm sure having a single driver for all the NICs is a feature cool > enough to die for. Yes, it might have drawbacks like just pointed out > by Peter, but surely a "single driver for all NIC" feature could prove > to be great in some systems. > Assuming it works, which is questionable in my opinion. > But since it does not already exist in the kernel, there must be some > technical feasibility isse. Any ideas on this? No, that's not the reason. The Intel code was ugly, and the limitations made other people not want to spend any time hacking on it. -hpa