[Suns-at-Home] Quad Fast Ethernet on an IPX?

[Darrick Burch]

Hey, all!

I just subscribed to this mailing list today, and in an effort to say
hello and whatnot, I arrive to you all with a question.

I bought a Quad Fast Ethernet adapter (SBUS, of course) with the intent of
using it in a SPARCStation IPX that was given to me several years ago.  It
appears that OpenBoot discovers the adapter, as does the Linux kernel I'm
using (the stock 2.2.20 kernel that came with Debian).

Unfortunately, I'm unable to bring up any four of these interfaces in
Linux.  OpenBoot doesn't allow me to TFTP an OS image and when I run the
diagnostic tests, I get a data exception error.  When I try to bring up
any of the four interfaces with ifconfig, I get an unusual error about the
transceiver and that's about it.  I can bring up the LANCE adapter built
into the motherboard, but that doesn't do my any good (until I get the
transceiver in the mail next week, that is).

Reading Sun's own manuals on this card, I noticed that this card is NOT
supported on the IPX.  Perhaps this is why I'm having trouble?  Is there a
reason why this card doesn't work on this machine?  I was merely
curious...

Thanks,
-Darrick