RE: GRUB 0.94 / Etherboot / 3C940 or e1000 ... some confusion

[Feng Shuo]

You are right. The diskless-boot support in GRUB is from
Etherboot-5.0.5, but for ethereboot changed its PCI and NIC drivers in
version 5.2.x/5.3.x greatly, we met some difficult in synchronizing the
latest drivers with it. :(

Some forerunners transported Intel GB NIC driver from some 'later'
version of etherboot to GRUB 0.93 with a patch. They called the driver
'e1000', that's why you can find some discussion about '--enable-e1000'
in configure.

I get a version of that patch from a friend, but I soon found it didn't
work on my 82545EM chip. And I also found that if I wanted to update the
driver to the new version in Etherboot-5.3.3, I nearly had to redo all
these 'transport' jobs that the original patch writer did. ---- It would
cause lots of redundancy in code and develop work. 

So, with the support of Okuji, I rewrote all the diskless-boot support
code in GRUB to sync with Etherboot-5.3.4, and released it as a patch to
the 'CVS HEAD' I checked out on 2003-10-28. For the version define in
the code is GRUB 0.94, I called the code I got from CVS HEAD as GRUB
0.94-1, and named my patch 'grub-0.94-diskless-1.patch', mean that the
patch worked only with the current code on CVS , not with the official
release GRUB 0.93. That's why you found some one talking about the new
diskless support in GRUB 0.94 ---- In fact, GRUB 0.94 is still in
developing. *^_^*

For the official CVS is not modified ever since 2003-10-19, my GRUB
0.94-1 is still CVS HEAD ;-). So, my patch sill works on the current CVS
HEAD :-). James Scott also provided a patch to the official GRUB 0.93.
---- All these patches can be found on
https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?func=detailitem&item_id=6690 . You can
download the appropriate patch from there and have a try :-). I also
will notice the list when new patches are available.

BTW: The e1000 driver in patch works on 82545EM. It should support
82540. But we sill not support 3C940. If someone can provide an
'etherboot-style' driver, we can support it right now.

Feng Shuo

-----Original Message-----
From: address@hidden
[mailto:address@hidden On Behalf Of
Schlabach, Torsten
Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2003 11:58 PM
To: 'address@hidden'
Subject: GRUB 0.94 / Etherboot / 3C940 or e1000 ... some confusion

Dear list,

I am somewhat new at least to the internals of GRUB and therefore have a
hard time getting some issues sorted out.

What I am trying to achive is to have a new server boot from the network
with GRUB that has two NICs:

- 3Com 3C940 (on board of the Asus A7V600 motherboard, Linux says
00:09.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c940 1000Base? (rev 12))
- Intel Gigabit (Linux says: 00:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp.
82540EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 02))

I have downloaded GRUB 0.93 but neither card is supported. Therefore I
did some searching on the mailing list and got even more confused. So I
wonder:

- GRUB is using Etherboot's drivers. Etherboot has a driver for e1000
(which I believe is my Intel card). But someone reports that it is not
just a matter of moving it in.
- Someone else writes that he compiles GRUB with --enable-e1000. I
cannot find this option. I even checked out the CVS version, but could
not find it.
- Someone else is posting a patch to GRUB 0.94. I can only find 0.93 in
the CVS. Or is 0.94 == CVS HEAD? But then again, in the CVS head, no
--enable-e1000.

Also I have a hard time believing that nobody ever had the problem to
boot with GRUB through any of the recent and widely sold Gigabit
Ethernet cards.

Can anyone point me to 0.94, let me know how to integrate the e1000
driver or give me any other useful hint?

Kind regards,
-----------------------------------------
Torsten Schlabach
+49 228 936 34735
address@hidden
T-Mobile Deutschland GmbH
-----------------------------------------



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