Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Sat, 14 Sep 1996 16:38:37 -0400 (EDT) | From | Jacques Gelinas <> | Subject | Re: NE2000 PCI clones patches: Vote! |
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On Fri, 13 Sep 1996, emoenke wrote:
> The NE2000 driver ALREADY DOES the PCI auto-probing! > Everything already is as it should if one uses ne.c "built-in". > Some maintainer, I guess it was Donald Becker himself, had decided > (I4m almost sure with good reasons) not to accept the auto-probing > result if invoked as a module. > > I am using ne.c with a PCI card since months, and I never had to code > any setup values anywhere. ne.c just does it right as-is if not used > as a module, and the built-in PCI code is ok.
We are circling around an unavoidable fact: Modular kernel is the future. The possibility to compile a kernel is a great "feature" or opportunity but it does not have to be essential to run linux. Modular kernels offers the linux community a solution to this. Having to compile a kernel just because you need this ethernet adaptor or this one is a show stopper for most linux user. If it is not a show stopper, it is a severe annoyance.
If the ne2000-PCI can probe and it does not, this is linux which looks unsophisticated. This is bad.
With the kind of reaction we have had on this one, I suspect that there will never be any new hardware support in 2.0 and users will have to wait for 2.2 to get it. It goes against the idea that 2.0 should have "some life" even when 2.1 is available.
-------------------------------------------------------- Jacques Gelinas (jacques@solucorp.qc.ca) Linuxconf: The ultimate administration system for Linux. see http://www.solucorp.qc.ca:/linuxconf
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