nVidia nForce2 chipset and on-board ethernet

[B. Kellogg]

> Over the past few months, there have been a handful of posts on
> freebsd-net regarding the lack of support in FreeBSD for on-board
> ethernet interfaces using the nVidia nForce2 chipset.  I have
currently
> a network-impared machine with an Asus A7N8X motherboard, which uses
> this chipset, with FBSD 5.1-RELEASE installed.
>
> In one exchange on freebsd-net, Mr. Bill Paul requested information
> from other users (which I was glad to provide) that he could pool
> together in order to justify a demand for related drivers.  He
> indicated that the response was great, but I've not since noticed
any
> further report of results and was wondering if it had gotten
anywhere
>
(http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-net/2003-July/001016.html)
> .  I've posted my question on freebsd-net without gaining a
response.
>
> Asus support is basically useless when it comes to BSD, and nVidia
> offers FreeBSD drivers only for graphic chipsets, although they _do_
> offer a "unified" driver for Linux.  I wonder if anyone has acheived
> any success with this unified driver, either in porting it or with
> Linux emulation.
>
> I'd love to get this box on the network and on the 'Net with
FreeBSD,
> without adding another NIC interface, which would affect the other
OSes
> I have multi-booting on this particular box (and which support this
> interface without trouble).  Any updates on drivers, patches, or
> work-arounds would be most welcome.
>
> Thanks,
> ~John
>
>
>

Haha, goodluck. I know Theo de Raadt at OpenBSD has been trying to get
documentation from nvidia for some time, so that drivers could be
written. He ultimately formed the opinion Nvidia has no interest in
end user opinons, but will only listen to the OEMs. He has given up
and advised OpenBSD users to shun Nvidia hardware.
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=105890466132299&w=2

I made the mistake of purchasing two motherboards with nforce
chipsets, one Asus, the other Abit. I'll never touch anything Nvidia
again. The Linux nforce driver they currently have posted on
nvidia.com locks Slackware up solid, and brings a RedHat machine to
it's knees, with almost 100% CPU usage. Even with nforce user's
complaining on the nvidia discussion forums about this problem, they
still leave this driver up unfixed. The lack of BSD support was
irritating, but their latest Linux driver was the last straw and
finally soured me completely on Nvidia. They really need to release
some documentation so somebody can make decent drivers for Linux and
BSD, since they won't do it.

So yeah, all of us BSD/Linux nforce people are screwed for now. My
solution, buy a good NIC with Linux and FreeBSD support, tell Nvidia
to go to hell, and never buy anything form them again.
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