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Content © Alfred Arnold, 2002 (original HERE). Edited by Major Tom.
As you might have read on other pages on this server, I am a collector of old
computers with Micro Channel bus, like the PS/2 series made by IBM. A few months
ago, I was given a stack of SKNET Junior Ethernet cards and even a PS/2 Model
80-311 with three SKNET MC2 boards :-)
However, I prefer to run Linux on my PS/2's, and didn't find a Linux driver
for them. The nearest one I found was a driver for the SK_G16, which is quite
similar in its structure to the Micro Channel variants, however the driver is
relatively old (last modification in 1994) and not loadable as a module,
therefore not allowing to control more than one board. So I decided to write
a new driver from scratch. Here is the result:
You may download the sources here.
The driver was developed with kernel version 2.0.35 and tested on a couple
of PS/2 machines, both linked statically into the kernel and loaded as a
module. Supported boards are the SKNET junior MC2 and the SKNET MC2(+).
The current version is confirmed to run with 2.2 kernels (in fact it has
become part of the Linux kernel distribution with 2.2.10) and with the
experimental 2.3.46 kernel.
Configurations with more than one card were tested with up to three boards.
Mixing cards of both types should work also, though I haven't tested this.
Interrupt sharing should work, but I didn't have a machine full
enough that the configuration program would have needed to assign an
interrupt to more than one board.
The driver is GPL, so you are free to use and improve it, but like always, it
comes without any warranty: If you smash something with it, you're the proud
owner of all remaining chunks ;-)
Apart from the driver sources themselves, you will find a patch file to
modify some other files in the Linux kernel tree. This way, the driver will
show up as a configuration option just like all other network drivers.
The patches are relative to a 2.0.35 source tree patched with the MCA patches
available on www.dgmicro.com.
A big thank you to SK for their quick
and competent support; within half an hour after sending my request for
documentation I had all documents I needed, including sample programs!
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