User manual

Etherboot User Manual
almost certainly a NE2000 clone. For some information, try here
(http://www.geocities.com/ken_yap_aus/). If it’s a PCI card, then either the BIOS or the Linux PCI
Utilities (http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mj/pciutils.shtml) should be able to tell you the
manufacturer and device IDs, which you can then look up to convert to names.
3. I would like to boot my laptop diskless from a floppy containing Etherboot.
The problem is that laptops these days use PCMCIA network adapter cards. These in turn connect to
the PCMCIA controller when docked. To be able to communicate with the PCMCIA card, Etherboot
would first have to talk to the PCMCIA controller. Until somebody writes the code to do this...
Booting from disk is different because the kernel will load the PCMCIA controller code from disk
first. You could always put a Linux kernel on the boot floppy.
9.10. Drivers
1. There is no Etherboot driver for my network adapter. Can you write me one?
If I were independently wealthy and had nothing else to do in life, sure! But unfortunately I have a
day job and Etherboot is a hobby. A couple of the drivers were written for pay and the others were
written by volunteers. Perhaps you might like to volunteer? If you have a good grasp of C, and
understand basic hardware concepts, it is quite doable, and not nearly as difficult as writing a Linux
device driver. See the developer manual (../devman/t1.html). You will have the reward of
understanding hardware intimately and seeing your work benefit users worldwide.
If you are a commercial entity, you might consider assigning staff or hiring a volunteer to write the
driver. You get the benefit of the rest of the Etherboot code infrastructure and users worldwide get to
appreciate your contribution. Bear in mind license conditions detailed in Section 2.2, of course. NIC
manufacturers note, this may be one way to attract users to your hardware products. NIC users note,
petition your NIC manufacturer to support Etherboot.
2. I see that my network adapter is supported in Linux but not in Etherboot. Can I use the Linux driver
in Etherboot? Or maybe you can adapt the Linux source for me. I can send you the Linux driver
source if you just say the word.
No, the structure of Linux and Etherboot drivers are rather different. There are several reasons:
Linux drivers are more complicated and written to give good performance, whereas Etherboot
drivers are written to be simple. Linux drivers are interrupt driven, whereas Etherboot drivers are
polling. Linux drivers have an elaborate support structure, whereas Etherboot drivers are fairly
self-standing.
But... you can use Linux drivers as a source of reverse-engineering information. Several of the
drivers in Etherboot were adapted from Linux drivers. But don’t send me the driver source; see
previous FAQ about volunteering. And I have the latest Linux source anyway, doesn’t everyone?
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