From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeff Garzik Subject: Re: Splitting e1000 (Was: Re: e1000: backport ich9 support from 7.5.5 ?) Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2007 13:56:59 -0400 Message-ID: <469276EB.4090502@garzik.org> References: <46857C08.4030303@intel.com> <20070630082520.GA20140@infradead.org> <468AD23A.4090904@intel.com> <468D8B32.9020305@garzik.org> <468EDAF9.3020606@intel.com> <20070707190431.GA26341@electric-eye.fr.zoreil.com> <46900B83.1060902@intel.com> <20070707183244.19d21893@freepuppy.rosehill.hemminger.net> <469110F6.2030902@linux.intel.com> <4691279C.8030603@garzik.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Mark McLoughlin , "Kok, Auke" , "David S. Miller" , e1000-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, Arjan van de Ven , "Ronciak, John" , Christoph Hellwig , netdev@vger.kernel.org, Francois Romieu , Andrew Morton , Stephen Hemminger , Jason Lunz , Andy Gospodarek To: Andrew Grover Return-path: In-Reply-To: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: e1000-devel-bounces@lists.sourceforge.net Errors-To: e1000-devel-bounces@lists.sourceforge.net List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org Andrew Grover wrote: > On 7/8/07, Jeff Garzik wrote: >> * e1000 gets feedback >> * Intel disappears for months >> * Intel reappears with e1000 rewrite > > * you ask them for another complete (simpler) rewrite > >> * Intel fights tooth and nail when the driver is not accepted verboten > > I don't think it must be as-is (i.e. replacing e1000 for all HW) but > don't throw away all the work they've done in architecting the driver > to cleanly handle multiple chip generations. > > How about: > > 1) Considering e1000new's current design, but for ICH9 only > 2) test test test > 3) Sometime in the future, considering incrementally moving previous > PCIe generations' support from e1000 to e1000new (like I initially > wanted, since that at least means there would be some technical reason > for where the split occurs :-) That plan would be fine... as long as the e1000new driver internals were restructured as I've been describing. If one arrives at a driver containing an internal API that is flexible enough to implement support for almost -any- NIC, then that's a sign that it needs to be organized in a different fashion. Jeff ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/