NICs not in GENERIC

[Alexander Leidinger]

Quoting Marius Strobl <marius at alchemy.franken.de> (from Tue, 21 Feb  
2012 23:42:52 +0100):

> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 03:56:40PM +0100, Alexander Leidinger wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> is there a specific reason that the following NICs are not (or shall
>> not be) in GENERIC (at least on i386)?
>>  - if_cas: is compiled as a module, Sun hardware, non-x86 only?
>>  - if_cxgb
>>  - if_cxgbe
>>  - if_gem: is compiled as a module, Apple/Sun, non-x86 only?
>>  - if_hme: is compiled as a module, Sun hardware, non-x86 only?
>>  - if_ic: no man-page
>>  - if_ipheth: no man-page
>>  - if_mos: USB NIC
>>  - if_mxge
>>  - if_my
>>  - if_nxge
>>  - if_vtnet: virtual NIC for hypervisors
>>
>
> As for cas(4), gem(4) and hme(4) the corresponding MACs also exist as
> add-on cards and these drivers work just fine on x86 (actually should
> do so on all architectures). Although some people also use or at least
> used these cards in x86 machines, I thought it still would be uncommon
> enough to put cards built for OFW machines into x86 ones to deliberately
> not add these drivers to the x86 GENERICs. Fell free to do so if you
> want though.

The GENERIC kernel on i386 takes about 15 MB on disk. The modules for  
cas/gem/hme take about 115 KB. It does not look like this would hurt  
from a file size perspective, but would give the benefit of users of  
the GENERIC kernel to have those NICs work out of the box in the  
installer.

Bye,
Alexander.

-- 
A person who has nothing looks at all there is and wants something.
A person who has something looks at all there is and wants all the rest.

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