Re: [PATCH] atl1: disable TSO by default

[Jay Cliburn <jacliburn@bellsouth.net>]

On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:10:37 +1000
Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au> wrote:

> Jay Cliburn <jacliburn@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> >        netdev->features |= NETIF_F_LLTX;
> 
> Another new driver using LLTX, this is not good when we're trying
> to get rid of it.

The atl1 driver was merged in the spring of 2007, so I'm not sure I
consider it new (but your kernel development time horizon is undoubtedly
*way* longer than mine, so you may indeed consider it new). It was
basically a vendor driver that we modified to conform to kernel coding
standards. It started life, we believe, as pretty much a clone of the
e1000 driver circa 2005, so that's likely where it's use of LLTX
came from.

> 
> Perhaps we could just kill it by ignoring the LLTX flag and always
> grabbing the xmit lock.  That should be safe as long as none of these
> drivers grab the xmit lock within their private locks.

I'd be happy to gin up a patch if you could point me to a driver that
implements properly what you're asking.

Thanks,
Jay