[Sunhelp] PCI Ethernet card.

[James Lockwood]

On Mon, 15 Nov 1999, Wes Hofmann wrote:

> Could you tell me where to start on finding info that
> I would need to write a driver?  It looks like Imight
> have to write a solaris driver for a wireless pcmcia
> ethernet card for my sparcbook.  Unfortunately, I'm
> not all tha tfamiliar with the sparc architecture or
> the kernel.  I've done some kernel driver work with
> linux on the pc and I figure it can't be THAT much
> different.  Any info on solaris driver writing you can
> give me would be most appreciated.  Thanks!

Go to the Solaris Developers Connection site (run by Sun).  They have the
DDK and a fairly extensive set of driver development documents available
for download.

Solaris kernel drivers are quite different than most others.  All h/w
access must go through the DDI (both a blessing and a curse) and the
reentrancy/threading requirements are more strict than in most other
systems. You're much better off writing a driver from scratch than trying
to port existing code, often a rethinking of code flow is in order.

-James