Quoting John P. Looney (valen at tuatha.org):
> eepro100 and e100 are two competing open source drivers. You can get the
> e100 from sf.net/projects/e1000 - It depends on what you want - an Intel
> written one, or a Donald Becker written one.
I remember when the e100 driver first came out. I was working at the
time at $FIRM, a Linux hardware company that produced a Red Hat-variant
distribution for its servers and workstations.
Torvalds and co. refused to include the e100 driver in the kernel.org
tree because of nasty patent incumbrances (if memory serves), and
therefore neither did Red Hat, Inc., which has always been wonderfully
protective of open-source principles. $FIRM, however, felt it couldn't
afford that position, since many of its motherboards' Ethernet Express
Pro 100 (i8255x) chipsets ran reliably only with that driver, and not
Becker's. So, our modified kernels always included both.
My recollection is that Intel eventually did freely licence its patents,
allowing acceptance of the driver. In any event, I can confirm what you
say about both drivers being good to have around: If one doesn't seem to
work properly, try the other.
--
Cheers,
Rick Moen "vi is my shepherd; I shall not font."
rick at linuxmafia.com -- Psalm 0.1 beta
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