Subject: Networking.
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 92 17:20:33 EST
From: Russ Nelson <nelson@cheetah.ece.clarkson.edu>
To: linux-activists@joker.cs.hut.fi

Hi, all.  I'm not on the list (yet), so if you reply to this, include me
in the CC:.

Eventually, people are going to want to do networking on Linux.  And
they're going to want to do it with a bunch of different Ethernet
boards.  Well, there is a bunch of freely copyable (copyleft to be
specific) MS-DOS Ethernet drivers called the Clarkson packet driver
collection.  I'm the editor of that collection.

These drivers all use a common skeleton that interfaces between FTP
Software's Packet Driver Specification, and the code that's specific
to each card.  That code could be reused if someone could find a way
to keep most of the entry points identical, or at least similar.  If
the entry points into the device-specific code need to be changed,
maybe we could find a way to do it so that all the drivers can get
ported at the same time?

I'd do it myself, but I've never seen the source for a Unix Ethernet driver.
Does anyone know how such code is structured?  I've got a book on Unix device
drivers, so I ought to be able to understand it if I could just see it...

--russ <nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> I'm proud to be a humble Quaker.
Peace is not the absence of war.  Peace is the presence of a system for
resolving conflicts before war becomes necessary.  War never creates peace.