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BCM5906


Azurael
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I just do not understand why we can't port FreeBSD drivers, but then again I am a noob. I think part of the reason there is no driver yet is because there is not enough demand.

Of course you can port it!!! But remember one thing before you start, you are not running FreeBSD. (a.k.a. you need to learn about IOKit)

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@Superhai

 

:P

Still, a BSD driver is much closer to osx than a linux driver. IOKit networking is just wrappers around the network stacks. Ever look at a Linux ethernet driver? All kinds of things that don't translate at all into the BSD universe.

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Still, a BSD driver is much closer to osx than a linux driver. IOKit networking is just wrappers around the network stacks. Ever look at a Linux ethernet driver? All kinds of things that don't translate at all into the BSD universe.

 

Yeah. Actually making a network driver for OSX is not very hard (but you someone have to do it). I have an old tutorial from the web if somoone really want to put their mind together and start.

 

IOKit_ethernet_designing.rtf

 

It is a base and before intel, but it is the same IOKit. So if you can read the BSD source and this and know programming you might get some results. I would start on this if just had the time...

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It is the Broadcom Tigon tg3 that is used both in FreeBSD and Linux.

Tigon III is a whole family of Broadcom chips. There are at least 6 different chips. It's no surprise, really, that a hacked-up driver for the 5701 doesn't work on the 5750 chips. One bit flag out of place could attempt to turn on a feature that just doesn't exist and any code in the driver that depends on that flag is going to fail. Some have DMA bugs, others don't. Some have timing bugs, some don't. Some will do checksums in hardware, others won't. It's one family but all the chips in the tg3 line might as well be from different planets.

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The BCM5906M is different from others:

 

 

BCM5901 = "Broadcom NetXtreme Fast Ethernet"

BCM5906 = "Broadcom NetLink Fast Ethernet"

BCM5782 = "Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet"

BCM5788 = "Broadcom NetLink Gigabit Ethernet"

BCM5789 = "Broadcom NetLink Gigabit Ethernet"

BCM5700FB = "Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Fiber"

BCM5700FA = "Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Fiber"

BCM5701FA = "Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Fiber"

BCM5703S = "Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Fiber"

BCM5703SW = "Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet"

BCM5704S = "Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Fiber"

BCM5704SW = "Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet"

 

and

 

 

 

This release of software supports:

- BCM5751M NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

- BCM5705 NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

- BCM5702 NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

- BCM5752M NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

- BCM5753M NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

- BCM5755M NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

- BCM5781 NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

- BCM5787M NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

- BCM5788 NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

- BCM5789 NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

- BCM5906M NetLink Ethernet Adapter

- BCM5787M NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

 

 

We can know that the bcm5906m is netlink but not netXtreme!!!!

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But why the driver can work on ubuntu ,but not leopard???

 

Under FreeBSD, I found a "ndisgen" , it can translate the drivers of windows to FreeBSD, and now I have both sound and networking driver under FreeBSD :)

 

Can we also write a "ndisgen" under Mac OS X?

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There are a lot of diferent UNIXes: Unix History

 

Is like you want to make a driver from Win98 working on WinXP, even some XP drivers don't work on Vista, the same apply to UNIXes,

 

BSD drivers don't work on Linux or Solaris, Linux drivers don't work on AIX, HPUX or SCO UNIX, and so, and so.

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^^

this is not the most optimal thing to do. I would like not to have other external devices for my computer.

I know that mine is working and the BCM5906 is the last thing I'm missing. So I hope that anyone can make a driver for this one too.

 

http://www.opensubscriber.com/message/free...rg/8716454.html

 

Broadcom 5906 in FreeBSD , can you transplantation it?

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This has no need to be on x-labs before someone starts programming this. And, no need to look for linux or bsd unless you want to program it, it is the IOKit part that is missing and what should be programmed. That means the physical part of the network stack.

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