On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 12:50:33 +0100
Rui Paulo <rpaulo@NetBSD.org> wrote:

> On 2005.07.26 11:59:50 +0000, Robert Cates wrote:
> | Hi,
> | 
> | I'm so excited about 64-bit processors on the desktop, and the AMD64
> | processors in particular, that I finally scraped some money together to buy
> | some hardware and installed NetBSD/AMD64 2.0.2 on it.  Everything went well
> | except for no support for the BCM5751 NIC.  I can accept the fact that the
> | NetBSD Foundation cannot pump out new stable/formal releases of NetBSD
> | everytime a new hardware device is put on the market, but can't the NetBSD
> | Foundation speed up the releases just a bit more, without someone having to
> | go to NetBSD-Current(?)...
> | 
> | Originally I saw on the NetBSD web site that the BCM5751 was supported (this
> | is not AMD64 specific), but later found out that the info on that page
> | pertained to NetBSD-Current (an oversite on my part).  Today I went to the
> | AMD64 web site and followed the link under "Future Releases" (Changes from
> | 2.0 to 3.0), and found absolutely nothing for the AMD64 port.  WHY??  I
> | think even if the changes for the i386 apply to the AMD64, it should be
> | noted, and "AMD64" should be present.
> | http://www.netbsd.org/Changes/changes-3.0.html and
> | http://www.netbsd.org/Changes/changes-4.0.html
> 
> Your NIC is not amd64 or i386 specific, as you probably know. So, I think
> there is no point in listing bge(4) changes under the i386 or amd64
> port page or in the change list.
[snip]

FYI, BCM575x support has been added to the current at 2004/10/28. Thus,
the NetBSD 3.x branch already supports it. Please also note the
following comments (from cvs log): ``They're close to the 5705 one,
with some special cases for the PCI-Express versions.  As there is no
documentation available, all of this is inspired from Linux or taken
from FreeBSD (itself inspired from Linux).  There are a lot of magic
numbers.''

Moreover, if you really need supporting this NIC in 2.x (or any other),
just backport the driver to appropriate branch, strongly test it, and
finally request pullups to the branch. That's all.

--
Mishka.