Bug 750332

Summary:	unsatisfactory performance of r8169 driver
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Zenith88 <zenith22.22.22>
Component:	kernel	Assignee:	Kernel Maintainer List <kernel-maint>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	high	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	16	CC:	gansalmon, itamar, jonathan, kernel-maint, madhu.chinakonda
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	x86_64
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2011-10-31 19:35:44 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:

Description Zenith88 2011-10-31 18:23:49 UTC

Description of problem: Driver initializes the gigabit adapter in 100 mbit mode

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

Linux host1 2.6.35.14-96.fc14.x86_64 #3 SMP PREEMPT Fri Sep 16 13:55:02 EDT 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

How reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Boot into Linux - network xfer speed won't exceed 1000-1900 kb/s
2. Boot into Windows - xfer speed will reach 60 Mb/s

Comment 1 Josh Boyer 2011-10-31 18:46:19 UTC

At this point in the F14 lifecycle, we are only fixing security bugs.  You might try the soon to be released F16 and see if your performance is improved.

Comment 2 Zenith88 2011-10-31 18:52:24 UTC

You may just as well replace 14 with 15 or 16, just look at the kernel version.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with Fedora distribution version.

Comment 3 Josh Boyer 2011-10-31 19:07:10 UTC

(In reply to comment #2)
> You may just as well replace 14 with 15 or 16, just look at the kernel version.
> This has nothing whatsoever to do with Fedora distribution version.

Yeah.  It says 2.6.35.14-96.fc14, which is old.  F15 is 2.6.40 (3.0), and F16 is 3.1.  So... the kernel versions are different.  Unless you're suggesting you've tried the latest kernel and still found performance to be lacking.  If so, you should contact the upstream driver maintainers on the netdev list.

Comment 4 Zenith88 2011-10-31 19:14:19 UTC

This is a core problem with the driver itself which is included w/o changes into all kernels since it was introduced.
I am contacting the driver maintainer for years since he wrote the driver to no avail.
The only way to address this problem is in the distro - please stop including this faulty driver! Someone else will fill the vacuum once the users will complain. Otherwise ineptness of this miserable excuse for a developer will be forever ignored.

Comment 5 Josh Boyer 2011-10-31 19:35:44 UTC

Sorry, but from a distro standpoint allowing people to use their hardware even if it is slow trumps not letting them use it at all.  We aren't going to turn off the driver in Fedora.

You might try both sets of maintainers upstream again:

Realtek linux nic maintainers <nic_swsd> (maintainer:8169 10/100/1000...)
Francois Romieu <romieu.com> (maintainer:8169 10/100/1000...)