Re: [ANNOUNCE] e1000 to e1000e migration of PCI Express devices

[Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>]

* Kok, Auke <auke-jan.h.kok@intel.com> wrote:

> From kernel 2.6.26 onward all *PCI Express* device IDs previously 
> supported by e1000 will be moving to the e1000e driver.  This includes 
> ich8 and ich9 onboard LAN, server 5000 platform onboard LAN (es2) and 
> 82571/2/3 chipset based adapters and variants.
> 
> If you have not already enabled CONFIG_E1000E make sure that you do 
> so. You can already do this with 2.6.25.  From 2.6.26 on this change 
> will be required if you have such a device.

i'm not sure it's a good idea to unsupport hardware in a driver. It's OK 
to phase out a driver and restrict it to legacy hardware, it's OK to 
have an opt-in .config option for distros to select (or maybe even 
opt-out) to narrow down the number of PCI IDs that a driver recognizes, 
but lets not artificially break setups that worked before.

( sidenote: isnt there some facility that selects the "better" driver in 
  case there is an overlap between PCI IDs - with the ability for users 
  to override that selection? )

such driver transitions are never smooth. For example there's an open 
e1000e/e1000 regression in .25 in this area that i just noticed on a 
testbox while doing randconfig testing. (that's why i noticed this 
message of yours on lkml, i was searching for e1000 regression reports).

The following .config results in a non-working e1000 driver in a 
bzImage:

 CONFIG_E1000=y
 CONFIG_E1000_NAPI=y
 CONFIG_E1000_DISABLE_PACKET_SPLIT=y
 CONFIG_E1000E=m
 CONFIG_E1000E_ENABLED=y

the interface just doesnt come up.

This makes it work:

 CONFIG_E1000=y
 CONFIG_E1000_NAPI=y
 CONFIG_E1000_DISABLE_PACKET_SPLIT=y
 # CONFIG_E1000E is not set
 # CONFIG_E1000E_ENABLED is not set

please fix such interactions and make the transition as smooth and as 
compatible as possible.

the hardware is a stock T60 laptop with:

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller

ich7 onboard LAN. (can send more info if needed.)

I just tried the same .config on another box with onboard e1000 (a 
desktop system with a different e1000 version), which is ich9, and that 
broke too.

	Ingo

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