OpenBSD Journal

bnx(4) needs testing

Contributed by marco on from the take bnx for a test drive dept.

I would like to remind everyone that bnx(4) which supports Broadcom NetXtreme 5706 & 5708 chips was recently enabled in GENERIC for i386 and amd64. This new driver needs wide testing so please bang away at it and provide us some feedback.

(Comments are closed)

Comments

  1. By Nate (65.94.56.251) on

    Wait a second, broadcom provided the driver? What the hell's going on there? I thought that Intel, Broadcom and T1 were the scum of the earth.

    Comments

    1. By Anonymous Coward (89.54.18.178) on

      > Wait a second, broadcom provided the driver? What the hell's going on there? I thought that Intel, Broadcom and T1 were the scum of the earth.

      This is a test whether non-blob drivers could actually work out for companies, does anyone actually read source code these days? Will this non-blob driver be improved by the open source community? Even if Broadcom de-supports this driver will this driver live on and in a useable state? Only time will tell.

      I read something that there was a typo in Makefiles that s/CLFAGS/CFLAGS/, and not only did this typo persist a long time but also spread like a virus into unrelated code. Let's wake up and read code ok? Depending on your mood and available time of course.

      Comments

      1. By Nate (65.94.57.252) on

        > I read something that there was a typo in Makefiles that s/CLFAGS/CFLAGS/, and not only did this typo persist a long time but also spread like a virus into unrelated code. Let's wake up and read code ok? Depending on your mood and available time of course.

        http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/sys/dev/pci/if_bnx.c

        Where in the source does it say, "we made this to test if you open source freaks will fix it, lolz," or even mention why it was made? Perhaps instead of reading about it somewhere else, you should read the source yourself, hmmm?

      2. By Anonymous Coward (66.11.66.41) on

        > > Wait a second, broadcom provided the driver? What the hell's going on there? I thought that Intel, Broadcom and T1 were the scum of the earth.
        >
        > This is a test whether non-blob drivers could actually work out for companies, does anyone actually read source code these days?

        What the hell are you talking about? The code doesn't say anything about testing anything. Instead of telling other people to read the code, maybe you should try it?

      3. By Anonymous Coward (70.27.15.123) on

        > This is a test whether non-blob drivers could actually work out for companies, does anyone actually read source code these days? Will this non-blob driver be improved by the open source community? Even if Broadcom de-supports this driver will this driver live on and in a useable state? Only time will tell.

        No, time already told. Over and over and over again. There's already lots of drivers in the tree. There is nothing special about this one that would make it somehow not get supported and maintained.

    2. By Anonymous Coward (81.168.66.242) on

      > Wait a second, broadcom provided the driver?

      (c) 2006 Broadcom and 3-clause BSD-style license: who'd have thought it...

  2. By Anonymous Coward (24.34.57.27) on

    This driver should be removed from GENERIC and in fact the entire kernel immediately. We should not be supporting Broadcom and need to do everything possible to ensure their quick disappearance.

    Comments

    1. By Anonymous Coward (213.254.171.218) on

      when your stuck with a dell/ibm/hp with built in nics this is most useful

    2. By Anonymous Coward (67.167.250.95) on

      > This driver should be removed from GENERIC and in fact the entire kernel immediately. We should not be supporting Broadcom and need to do everything possible to ensure their quick disappearance.

      If they donated the source code under an acceptable license, who cares?

      Comments

      1. By Anonymous Coward (208.252.48.163) on

        > > This driver should be removed from GENERIC and in fact the entire kernel immediately. We should not be supporting Broadcom and need to do everything possible to ensure their quick disappearance.
        >
        > If they donated the source code under an acceptable license, who cares?

        So much for morals, eh?

        Comments

        1. By Anonymous Coward (193.63.217.208) on

          > > > This driver should be removed from GENERIC and in fact the entire kernel immediately. We should not be supporting Broadcom and need to do everything possible to ensure their quick disappearance.
          > >
          > > If they donated the source code under an acceptable license, who cares?
          >
          > So much for morals, eh?

          Ideally we'd want chip specs but since we have an open source driver with an acceptable license I fail to see how that lacks morals. The moral stand is not accepting blobs. Broadcom should be applauded for taking a first step towards where we want them to go.

    3. By Anonymous Coward (62.252.32.12) on

      > This driver should be removed from GENERIC and in fact the entire kernel immediately. We should not be supporting Broadcom and need to do everything possible to ensure their quick disappearance.

      From the Project Goals page at openbsd.org:

      "Be as politics-free as possible; solutions should be decided on the basis of technical merit."

  3. By Dunceor (192.16.134.66) on

    They can change. Just because they have been hard to work with before but if they provide a driver with the source code and gives us the ability to modify/improve it, it should most definitily be added to GENERIC.

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