Re: How does "alias ethX drivername" in modules.conf work?

Riley Williams
2001-08-10T21:26:16Z

Hi Paul.

>> One of my systems has SIX ethernet cards, these being three ISA
>> and two PCI NE2000 clones and a DEC Tulip. Here's the relevant
>> section of modules.conf on the system in question:
>>
>> Q> alias eth0 ne
>> Q> options eth0 io=0x340
>> Q> alias eth1 ne
>> Q> options eth1 io=0x320
>> Q> alias eth2 ne
>> Q> options eth2 io=0x2c0
>> Q> alias eth3 ne2k-pci
>> Q> alias eth4 ne2k-pci
>> Q> alias eth5 tulip

> You have six drivers loaded, when you only need three (i.e.
> io=0x340,0x320,0x2c0 for ne options etc. etc). So you end up
> wasting some memory, and a worse icache behaviour as well.

Are you sure of this? My understanding (both from reading the code and
from what others I respect have said) is that it is impossible to load
any given module more than once, so the above will result in one copy
each of the ne, ne2k-pci and tulip drivers being loaded.

> (the latter is probably a non-issue if you are happy with ISA)

It's not so much a case of being "happy with ISA" as of needing six
interfaces on the same box, and it only has the three PCI slots...

Best wishes from Riley.