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e1000e Bug Squashed — Linux Kernel Patch Released
ruphus13 writes "As mentioned earlier, there was a kernel bug in the alpha/beta version of the Linux kernel (up to 2.6.27 rc7), which was corrupting (and rendering useless) the EEPROM/NVM of adapters. Thankfully, a patch is now out that prevents writing to the EEPROM once the driver is loaded, and this follows a patch released by Intel earlier in the week. From the article: 'The Intel team is currently working on narrowing down the details of how and why these chipsets were affected. They also plan on releasing patches shortly to restore the EEPROM on any adapters that have been affected, via saved images using ethtool -e or from identical systems.' This is good news as we move towards a production release!"
"The _real_ bug is clearly in the hardware design that allows you to brick those things without apparently even having a lock bit. I'm hoping Intel doesn't treat this as just a software bug. Some hw designer should be thinking hard about which orifice they put their head up in."
Does this affect solid state drives too? I just bought an asus eee pc 901.
slashdot rocks
Can you catalogue any bugs in Windows that cause a piece of hardware to malfunction semi-permanently? This is a pretty serious issue even for an alpha. I hope Linus and crew reevaluate testing procedures to make sure this doesn't happen again. I can't say I'm hopeful about that though.