Description of problem: Please consider upgrading the sk98lin in RHEL4 (I guess for 4U3 now?) to a more recent release. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): up to 4 U2 beta Additional info: As always, thanks :)
For various reasons, this will not be likely to happen. What device do you want supported? Would you be interested in the skge and/or sky2 drivers?
John, I'm used sk98lin because that was what the installer (4U1) suggested. The GE chip is reported 88E8001 by lspci (vendor:device id is 11ab:4320) On Shuttle SB83G systems (and others according to Marvell) the drivers supplied by RHEL4 do not work properly - there are errors constantly printed in the syslog and interface counters are always zero. There been various discussions regarding the issue: <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=136158> <http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3598> According to Marvell, version 8.24 of the sk98lin driver fixes the issue. I applied it as a patch to the kernel*.src.rpm and it seems to compile cleanly. I also enabled NAPI. I've got no trouble with it in the lab using both 4U1 and the 4U2 beta kernel while transfering data at high rates to/from the host. As far as I could tell, there weren't any sk98lin affecting patches in the RHEL4 kernel with the exception of one (davej's MODULE_DEVICE_TABLE entry patch) Please let me know if you need more information, thanks :)
Created attachment 118825 [details] jwltest-skge.patch Add the skge driver...
Test kernels with the above patch are available here: http://people.redhat.com/linville/kernels/rhel4/ These include the skge driver as an alternative to the sk98lin driver. You may need to edit /etc/modprobe.conf and change instances of "sk98lin" to "skge" in order to use this driver. Please give these kernels a try and post the results...thanks!
Still could use some test results here... :-)
Hi John, I'm happy with the sk98lin driver. There haven't been any problems with it on any of the systems requiring it. Is there something wrong with that particular driver or is there another reason why you would prefer to switch to skge instead? Thanks :)
The sk98lin driver has fallen out of favor with the Linux community and is essentially unmaintained. While Marvell does have an update version available for download, the version in the Linux kernel (and in Fedora and RHEL) does not support a lot of newer variations of the hardware, particularly the Yukon-II chips. The sk98lin driver simply will not be updated in a Red Hat kernel unless/until the upstream sk98lin situation changes. Even if I wanted to update it, I would be severely beaten by my peers... :-) If at all possible, please try the skge driver. It should work with any hardware currently covered by the sk98lin driver. Please post any test results (positive or negative) here...thanks!
Closed due to lack of response. Please reopen when the skge and/or sky2 testing results become available. sk98lin will NOT be upgraded in RHEL4.
I'm not sure if you'll still take feedback here since you closed the bug, however, I recently purchased a DLink DGE-530T because is was the only card available at the one store in town and I was hoping it might work with RHEL4. The system is RHEL4 U4 and it detected the card, and attempted to use the sky2 driver, but this driver simply returned an error that the specific chip ID in question (0xB1) was not supported. Further invesitgation turned up your pages with your test kernels and indicated the card should be supported with the skge driver. I attempted to use your kernels, and modified the modprobe.conf to load the skge module instead of the sky2 module. The 1.6 version of the skge module did recognize the card, and allowed me to bring the interface up, however, it would not pass any traffic. The RX count on the interface would increase so it appeared to be receiving traffic, however, the TX count remained at zero. I was able to get the card to work by downloading, complining, and installing the updated sk98lin driver from the http://www.syskonnect.de/ support website so I know the hardware is fine. Actually performance seems quite good. I attempted to compile a newer skge driver from the 2.6.19-pre2 kernels but there were too many changes and I didn't have time to attempt to hack it enough to compile. Is there anything I can do to help with the testing effort or is this a lost cause? Thanks, Tom