Success with Qualcomm Atheros QCA8171

[Yonghyeon PYUN]

On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 09:17:57AM +0800, Kevin Lo wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 11:44:24AM +0200, Nils Beyer wrote:
> > 
> > Hi Gulyaev,
> > 
> > Gulyaev Ghosh wrote:
> > > Since I ask on the FreeBSD forums, there is a proposition to check
> > > alx-freebsd and have initialized interface.
> > >
> > > So if someone have similar hardware, you can got your experience with
> > > that project and share info.
> > 
> > I've got an onboard "AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet" adapter. With your proposed GIT-
> > repository and using its branch "master" I'm able to rudimentarily use the
> > NIC. But only if the network cable is short (< 2m). Using longer cables gives
> > me a "no carrier" status. When it is connected, speed is abysmal and functio-

Yeah, the controller requires lots of DSP fixup codes under various
situations.

> > nality ceases as soon as I perform an "iperf" benchmark until I reboot.
> > 
> > But for small data transfers (SSH, RSYNC, RDP) it's okay. Mark has done a good
> > job so far:
> > ===============================================================================
> > #dmesg | grep alx
> > alx0: <Qualcomm Atheros AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet> port 0x2000-0x207f mem 0xd0400000-0xd043ffff irq 16 at device 0.0 on pci2
> > alx0: Ethernet address: 5c:f9:dd:55:c9:fb
> > 
> > #ifconfig alx0
> > alx0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
> >         ether 5c:f9:dd:55:c9:fb
> >         inet6 fe80::5ef9:ddff:fe55:c9fb%alx0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2 
> >         nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
> >         media: Ethernet autoselect
> >         status: no carrier
> > 
> > #pciconf -evl | tail -13
> > alx0 at pci0:2:0:0:        class=0x020000 card=0x05621028 chip=0x10911969 rev=0x10 hdr=0x00
> >     vendor     = 'Atheros Communications Inc.'
> >     device     = 'AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet'
> >     class      = network
> >     subclass   = ethernet
> >   PCI-e errors = Correctable Error Detected
> >                  Non-Fatal Error Detected
> >                  Unsupported Request Detected
> >      Non-fatal = Unsupported Request
> >      Corrected = Bad TLP
> >                  Bad DLLP
> >                  REPLAY_NUM Rollover
> >                  Replay Timer Timeout
> > ===============================================================================
> 
> AFAIK yongari@ is working on it.

Yes, I'm working on it.   Very basic things seems to work at this
moment but it still has lots of things to be resolved.  Due to lack
of spare time the progress is very slow but I'll let you guys know
when it's ready for public testing.