r8169.c

Dorn Hetzel
2004-11-19T15:07:58Z

I've been working on building a new system using an Abit AA8 Duramax
motherboard, which includes a realtek 8169/8110 gigE controller as
well as Intel ICH6R AHCI SATA interface.

The r8169.c version 1.2 driver in 2.6.9 had issues hanging the ethernet
on the AA8, so I downloaded version 2.2 from the realtek.com.tw
website, which fixed that issue.

2.6.9, however, was not making happy noises with the ICH6R/AHCI SATA
controller, and after reviewing changelogs and finding encouraging
notes, I gave 2.6.10-rc2 a try and I am happy to report that it
seems to work very well with the AHCI SATA drives.

2.6.10-rc2 still uses the 1.2 8169 driver, same as 2.6.9...

However, the r8169 2.2 driver would not build with 2.6.10-rc2,
due to use of pci_dma_sync_single.

I've made a V2.3 of the 8169 driver which uses
pci_dma_sync_single_for_cpu instead, and it seems to work fine.

I was hoping to submit a patch to move the new driver into
some appropriate release, but the 2.2/2.3 driver is so far
changed from 1.2 that the diff -u is about the size of the
original and new file combined :(

Which brings me to my question (my apologies for the roundabout path)...

With such a huge diff, should I send a diff, or the whole new file, or
do something else entirely?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Dorn Hetzel