Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

nForce MCP Network Driver Working On FreeBSD 5.1

Posted by timothy on from the integrated-parts dept.

Dan writes "Quinton Dolan is in the final stages of porting the NVidia Linux nForce MCP network driver to FreeBSD-5.1. He is looking for users/developers with access to this hardware for testing help. The driver currently appears to be stable on his hardware (an MSI K7N420 Pro), although he hasn't done much stress testing, nor does he have access to an nForce2 based motherboard to test."

2 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmmm.... by greenhide · · Score: 2, Insightful

    From his post:
    If you are interested in testing this, email me offline.

    Oh, okay. How do you want me to do that? Use smoke signals over TCP/IP?

    I've never used *BSD, but all the propoganda I've read says that it has a built in Linux emulator. Wouldn't that make it easy to port?

    Also, why bother using a card that requires some special driver? Every run of the mill Ethernet card that I've thrown in a box works just fine without any tweaking or downloading special drivers.

    --
    Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
    1. Re:Hmmmm.... by trippinonbsd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I've never used *BSD, but all the propoganda I've read says that it has a built in Linux emulator. Wouldn't that make it easy to port?

      FreeBSD has something that is even better than linux emulation. It natively understands and maps linux system calls to their FreeBSD equivilent, which in the earlier days of linux allowed FreeBSD to execute linux binarys faster than linux could. This doesnt make it much easier to port over drivers because drivers are not normal simple executable files.

      Also, why bother using a card that requires some special driver? Every run of the mill Ethernet card that I've thrown in a box works just fine without any tweaking or downloading special drivers.

      Why bother ever using anything onboard with this attitude? No need to use that crazy onboard ide when i could add in a nice 3ware 8 port card...