bootfloppy and 1Gbps NICs

[Dale Harris]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2003 at 08:40:16AM -0700, Bruce  Edge elucidated:
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Frank Lenaerts [mailto:lenaerts.frank at pandora.be]
> > Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 7:45 AM
> > To: linux-fai at Uni-Koeln.DE
> > Subject: bootfloppy and 1Gbps NICs
> > 
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Currently, lots of mainboards/systems have an onboard 1Gbps NIC. Linux
> > kernel 2.4.18 however (woody), does not have support for e.g. Intel's
> > e1000 NIC. 
> > 
> > Therefore, I am wondering how I can create a custom FAI bootfloppy to
> > include support for this card or did somebody already create such a
> > floppy? It seems that the bootfloppy generated by make-fai-bootfloppy
> > almost only contains a vmlinuz kernel image (with in kernel support
> > for several NICs I suppose). 
> > 
> 
> It's worse than that.
> I looked at booting from this NIC once, and at the time (2.4.18) did not
> have a driver for it.
> You had to use intel's driver that was only buildable as a module.
> So, you would need to build a boot floppy with an initrd containing this
> driver.
> 
> For us, this wasn't our long term NIC, so I just plugged in a supported
> card and never actually did it.
> 
> -Bruce

The e1000 driver is include by default in the 2.4.21 debian kernels.  

-- 
Dale Harris   
rodmur at maybe.org
/.-)