Re: tg3 driver fails
From: Hendrik Sattler <ubq7@stud.uni-karlsruhe.de>
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 22:22:06 +0200
> Does initrd or the like work with network boot? How does the card
> actually do network boot when not being able to operate without
> firmware (chicken-egg problem)? If the network card cannot handle
> network boot: why would you want such a crap?
The openfirmware forth code on the card is executed by the
system boot firmware.
> It's good for ISDN cards as there are many modes to operate in but for an
> ethernet card?
It's been happening for a long time. Way back in the Acenic days, the
firmware is used to work around a bug in the DMA unit of the card.
This is not uncommon.
Many current generation cards also do TCP Segmentation Offload in
firmware as well. Although gradually most of this stuff is being
done in the chip itself, but bugs are harder to fix as a result.
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