Re: AW: Re: AW: Re: VLAN and Network Drivers 2.4.x

David S. Miller
2002-04-24T17:34:59Z

From: Ben Greear <greearb@candelatech.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 10:31:29 -0700

Maybe it could just WARN and still bring it up, if it's just
an MTU issue? (Or is this a total failure of VLAN support you
are talking about?)

This creates a support issue. It's almost impossible to field
bug reports effectively once you start letting users do stuff
like this.

Also, is there any good reason that we can't get at least a compile
time change into some of the drivers like tulip where we know we can
get at least MOST of the cards supported with a small change?

I know the driver writers hate cruft in the drivers, but we have had
ppl using the patches in production machines for months, if not years,
with no ill effects.

But the changes are wrong, just because they work for some people
doesn't make the change mergeable into the main tree.

The same argument applies to the EEPRO driver (we know a cure, but it's
a magic register number, and no one will accept the patch).

Intel is making strides with their e1000 and e100 drivers, just give
them some time.

Also Jeff is in a rut right and busy with some things, once he gets
back up to speed you can expect a lot of these issues to be dealt
with.

Franks a lot,
David S. Miller
davem@redhat.com