Broadcom 440x nic

[Steve Joynt]

On Sat, 26 Apr 2003, Ed Satterthwaite wrote:

> I don't know anything about the status of ongoing work on a BSD driver
> (if any).
>
> I do have access to the Broadcom documentation of both the 570x
> series, for which I had to write a driver, and the 440x series, but
> unfortunately only under NDA as part of my regular job.  I can tell
> you that, contrary to conjecture at the time, the two architectures
> have almost nothing in common.

Aah.. that's unfortunate. From what I had read the linux drivers were fairly
similar for the 440x and 570x series.

> I couldn't justify the cost of a 4401 eval board to my boss (project
> requires GigE), so I have no direct experience with it.  OTOH, the
> 440x design is relatively simple and conventional.  I'd expect that
> adapting a driver like dc or sis wouldn't be too hard.  Broadcom did
> publish the source for a GPL'd Linux 440x driver, which a web search
> should find.

I'll certainly have a look at this, although I haven't had that much experience
with device drivers so I won't expect too much :)

> For what it's worth, my guess is that the 4401/5702 option on the Asus
> boards will soon be replaced by the 5705 as standard.
>
> Good luck.

thanks,
- Steve