Netgear FA310TX REV-D2 -- final resolution.

[Clemmitt Sigler]

Hi again,

I wanted to follow up on the problem I posted last week with getting
the Bay Networks Netgear FA310TX REV-D2 Ethernet card working with
my Linux boxes.  I have Debian 2.1 (a.k.a. slink) installed, running
kernel 2.0.36.  The stock tulip driver wouldn't get this card working.
When the driver was insmod'ed, the link light on my 10-base-T hub
didn't come on as it would with my old DEC 21040-based Ethernet card,
which was a D-Link DE-530CT+.  The Netgear card uses a "NGMC169" chip,
which appears to be a Lite-On-alike chip.

I tried the tulip v0.91 driver also, without success.  I used the debug
and option arguments to tulip, setting option=9 to force 10-base-T
with the MII transceiver.  No soap, and no real useful info from
setting debug=4.  It just didn't work.  Then I downloaded the latest
Netgear drivers, v4.02, and unpacked and copied over their TULIP.C
driver, which is based on v0.89 but specially modified to work with
the Netgear cards.  Well, it's supposed to be.  This driver didn't
work either.

Dana Hudes (from Bay Networks) e-mailed me and suggested I try
Netgear tech. support.  It seems silly, but I didn't even think
of that because I'm so used to solving my own Linux hardware
problems.  But sure enough, there's an e-mail address in the
Netgear-supplied TULIP.C driver file.  So I e-mailed them.

Well, to make a long story short, I'm sending back my 4 FA310TX
Ethernet cards.  The response from their tech support was simple:
Linux is *not* a supported OS for the FA310TX Ethernet card.  The
best way I could think of replaying them for their "help" was to
negate the sale they had made to me.

I bought these cards from Multiwave (http://www.mwave.com/) and I
need to plug them.  They agreed to take back all four cards,
including the one I opened and tried out, no questions asked.  I just
explained my predicament, that the Netgear web pages and docs claim
Linux support but subsequently they refused me tech support, and they
promptly sent me an RMA number.

If anyone wants to see my e-mails to Netgear tech. support or their
replies to me, please e-mail privately, csigler@vt.edu.  I think it's
strange that some people have gotten this card to work with the tulip
driver and I can't.  This is the first time in 4 years of running
Linux that I couldn't get a (supposedly supported) piece of hardware
to work.  I wonder if anybody else has gotten a card marked REV-D2
to work...

					Clemmitt Sigler
					Va. Tech Physics Dept.