Re: question

[lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Lennart Sorensen)]

On Mon, May 09, 2005 at 08:12:44PM +0200, Marcin D?bicki wrote:
> I just wanted to say that the primary adapter I call this device is a device
> like Marvell Yukon (not Yukon) but nForce has an API used to hide real
> interface from OS. True adapter driver is on nvidia chipset because only
> chipset sees what adapter is installed. So if you are using forcedeth then
> you are really telling chipset what to do. Chipset translates your order
> and tells adapter what you want. Using forcedeth you are not talking to
> adapter directly but only to nForce chipset.

forcedeth is a driver for the nvidia MAC.  It doesn't really matter much
which PHY is connected outside the chipset to provide the actual port,
since that is mostly generic as far as the driver is concerned.

The mervall Yukon is another MAC chip (possibly with an internal PHY, I
don't know) which uses a completely different driver (sk98lin).

An ethernet port consists of a MAC, a PHY, and in the case of copper
ethernet, some magnetics and the port.  nvidia provides just the MAC,
and nothing else.  Many boards use some realtek PHY together with the
nvidia MAC to build the ethernet port.

Len Sorensen