[ltp] 2.4 Kernel and Thinkpads?

[Ken Firestone]

Thanks for getting back to me. Is this just a problem with the Xircom
card, or does it happen with all pcmcia ethernet cards?

And, excuse my ignorance, but how do I not use the ipx auto_primary
and auto_interface?

Thanks.

Ken

On Wed, 28 Feb 2001, [iso-8859-1] Thomas Hood wrote:


  --- Ken Firestone <kenf@clark.net> wrote:
  > I was wondering how people are doing with the 2.4 kernel on their
  > Thinkpads? Are there any problems? Are the pcmcia cards working
  > correctly?

  Linux 2.4 works pretty well for me.  2.4.0 had a bug in the ipx
  driver that caused kernel confusion when a Xircom Ethernet/modem
  card was inserted and ejected, but this problem has been
  partially fixed in 2.4.2.  The remaining problem isn't fatal
  and can be worked around by not using ipx auto_primary and
  auto_interface.

  I was satisfied with Linux 2.2.18, actually.  2.4.x seems a
  little faster, but it's hard to tell the difference.  The
  only reason I upgraded to 2.4.x is that I knew other people
  would be doing so eventually and I had to modify the
  "thinkpad" hardware drivers for tpctl to make them work with
  the new kernel API.  Once I installed it and I ran into the
  aforementioned bug, I figured it was part of my responsibility
  as a citizen of Linuxland to try to find the bug rather than
  wait around for someone else to do it, so I've been working
  with Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo on it.  It's a very tough bug
  to find.  Somehow, when ipx auto_primary and auto_interface
  are enabled and the Xircom card is inserted and ejected, the
  count of the number of references to the eth0 device
  (dev->refcnt) becomes incorrect.  In 2.4.0, this could cause
  oopses.  Now (in 2.4.2) it just makes networking unusable
  until the next reboot.  But as I say, the workaround is not
  to use auto_primary and auto_interface.

  Thomas

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============================================================================
Ken Firestone, W3CAT     | For every problem there is one solution
ken@firestone.net	 |  which is simple, neat, and wrong.
kenf@clark.net           |   -- H. L. Mencken
============================================================================


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