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

[Ron Wickersham]

On Sat, 30 Dec 2006, Darrick Burch wrote:

> 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

Darrick,

i use a QFE card in an IPX (with the Power-UP processor) running OpenBSD
so can confirm that it has no issues with the hardware.  the standard IPX
is probably a little underpowered for routing 4 interfaces at line speed,
but worked for years here routing between mostly 10Mb/s hubs, but also to
a 100Mb/s interface as well.  i tend to use the OpenBSD ifconfig option to
select the interface speed rather than auto-negotiation so maybe that has
something to do with it.   check the man page on ifconfig under linux and
see if you can set the media speed explicitly and if that helps your
issue.

-ron