Not All Broadcom GigE's are Equal

Recently, I posted a blog entry where I described that "Not All GigE Are Equal", strongly advocating the use of Broadcom GigE devices when faced with a choice.

However, after spending time in the code, I've discovered that there is quite a range of differences amongst Broadcom gigE devices.

I had considered listing a full table of them, but it seems that would be a bit onerous. Take a look at usr/src/uts/common/io/bge/bge_chip2.c if you want to find out the gory details. But in the mean time, here are my recommendations:

If you have PCI or PCI-X: Choose a bcm5704 if you can. It has pretty much full feature support, but you need to pick a recent revision (newer than A0.) Look for pci ids of pci14e4,1646, pci14e4,16a8, or pci14e4,1649. These chips alls support PCI-X, multiple rings, full checksum offload, and multiple hardware tx and rx rings.

If you have PCIe: As far as I can tell, all of the PCIe chips that are Solaris supported lack support for multiple hardware tx/rx rings. This is really unfortunate, as it will have a negative impact on Crossbow benefits. But apart from that, it looks like the 5714 and 5714 series are your best bet. They both support jumbo frames, and they both have full checksum offload support. Look for pci ids of pci14e4,1668, pci14e4,1669, pci14e4,1678, or pci14e4,1679.

What this really says, is if you have to choose between a PCI-X card and a PCIe card, surprisingly, choose the PCI-X card (if you can get a 5704). Save your PCIe for framebuffers or HBAs. (Or, better, 10G cards like Neptune.)

blogger Atom bugs

As part of setting up the Tadpole project, I tried to use a feed direct from Blogger, but the OpenSolaris tonic infrastructure doesn't like it. Apparently the feed has some problems, which you can see by looking at the output from feedvalidator. Anyway, I was able to work around by using feedburner to convert the blogger Atom feed into a clean RSS feed. Maybe at some point some Blogger staff will look at this and see what the problem is.

hackergotchi... thanks Gman!

Gman (Glynn) made a hackergotchi from a photo I sent him, which is used on planet.opensolaris.org. His gimp-fu is great. Thanks Gman!

Tadpole project live

The Tadpole project is now live!

First Tadpole code review posted

The first review for Tadpole platform support is online now. Please let me know your thoughts, after reading it. There will be more good stuff coming soon, I hope. (Also, if you have a Tadpole platform other than a SPARCLE or UltraBook IIi, and are willing to test, please let me know!)

Thanks!

Who's Who?

I just received two e-mails (identical to each other) stating this:

Dear DAmore Garrett,

The Heritage Registry of Who's Who is recognizing you for possible inclusion in the upcoming 2007-08 Edition. Please go to http://theheritageregistryofwhoswho.com and click on the invitation button.

Thank You,

Chris Jespersen

I'm not entirely convinced this is a worthwhile thing... but I'm willing to play along until they ask me for money. Anyone else out there received these before?

Tadpole project proposed

FYI, I recently proposed a new project to track improvements to support for Tadpole platforms in OpenSolaris. It looks like it got the seconds needed, so I'm just waiting for the infrastructure to be created.