| Linus Torvalds | 1da177e | 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | |
| 2 | FORE Systems PCA-200E/SBA-200E ATM NIC driver |
| 3 | --------------------------------------------- |
| 4 | |
| 5 | This driver adds support for the FORE Systems 200E-series ATM adapters |
| 6 | to the Linux operating system. It is based on the earlier PCA-200E driver |
| 7 | written by Uwe Dannowski. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | The driver simultaneously supports PCA-200E and SBA-200E adapters on |
| 10 | i386, alpha (untested), powerpc, sparc and sparc64 archs. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | The intent is to enable the use of different models of FORE adapters at the |
| 13 | same time, by hosts that have several bus interfaces (such as PCI+SBUS, |
| 14 | PCI+MCA or PCI+EISA). |
| 15 | |
| 16 | Only PCI and SBUS devices are currently supported by the driver, but support |
| 17 | for other bus interfaces such as EISA should not be too hard to add (this may |
| 18 | be more tricky for the MCA bus, though, as FORE made some MCA-specific |
| 19 | modifications to the adapter's AALI interface). |
| 20 | |
| 21 | |
| 22 | Firmware Copyright Notice |
| 23 | ------------------------- |
| 24 | |
| 25 | Please read the fore200e_firmware_copyright file present |
| 26 | in the linux/drivers/atm directory for details and restrictions. |
| 27 | |
| 28 | |
| 29 | Firmware Updates |
| 30 | ---------------- |
| 31 | |
| 32 | The FORE Systems 200E-series driver is shipped with firmware data being |
| 33 | uploaded to the ATM adapters at system boot time or at module loading time. |
| 34 | The supplied firmware images should work with all adapters. |
| 35 | |
| 36 | However, if you encounter problems (the firmware doesn't start or the driver |
| 37 | is unable to read the PROM data), you may consider trying another firmware |
| 38 | version. Alternative binary firmware images can be found somewhere on the |
| 39 | ForeThought CD-ROM supplied with your adapter by FORE Systems. |
| 40 | |
| 41 | You can also get the latest firmware images from FORE Systems at |
| 42 | http://www.fore.com. Register TACTics Online and go to |
| 43 | the 'software updates' pages. The firmware binaries are part of |
| 44 | the various ForeThought software distributions. |
| 45 | |
| 46 | Notice that different versions of the PCA-200E firmware exist, depending |
| 47 | on the endianess of the host architecture. The driver is shipped with |
| 48 | both little and big endian PCA firmware images. |
| 49 | |
| 50 | Name and location of the new firmware images can be set at kernel |
| 51 | configuration time: |
| 52 | |
| 53 | 1. Copy the new firmware binary files (with .bin, .bin1 or .bin2 suffix) |
| 54 | to some directory, such as linux/drivers/atm. |
| 55 | |
| 56 | 2. Reconfigure your kernel to set the new firmware name and location. |
| 57 | Expected pathnames are absolute or relative to the drivers/atm directory. |
| 58 | |
| 59 | 3. Rebuild and re-install your kernel or your module. |
| 60 | |
| 61 | |
| 62 | Feedback |
| 63 | -------- |
| 64 | |
| 65 | Feedback is welcome. Please send success stories/bug reports/ |
| 66 | patches/improvement/comments/flames to <lizzi@cnam.fr>. |