August 27, 2007
Via Velocity VT6122 Unstable in Linux
After much experimenting in Debian Etch and Slackware 11, with various 2.6.x kernels up to and including 2.6.22, the VT6122 gigabit ethernet chipset, combined with either the built in via_velocity driver or the via supplied velocityget driver, results in an unstable link under load.
When the network is under heavy use (copying a file over samba/netatalk counts), the following appears multiple times in syslog indicating the continual reset of the network.
Aug 27 14:31:13 Enterprise kernel: eth0: failed to detect cable link
Aug 27 14:31:16 Enterprise kernel: eth0: Link auto-negotiation speed 1000M bps full duplex
Based on this, I do not recomend the use of Velocity based cards in Linux computers.
Posted by spiffed at 6:53 PM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2007
Via Velocity velocityget module with kernel 2.6.22
The latest velocityget Via Velocity driver does not compile under kernel 2.6.22.
To build the driver without pulling your hair out, you'll need the velocityget 1.23 sources from Via Arena and my patch.
Download everything
wget http://www.viaarena.com/Driver/velocityget.tgz wget http://spiffie.org/computing/archives/velocityget_1.23_for_2.6.22.patchExtract the sources:
tar xzf velocityget.tgz cd 1.23Apply the patch:
cat ../velocityget_1.23_for_2.6.22.patch |patch -p1Build everything and install:
make sudo make install
At this point, you'll need to load the module. This could entail any of the following:
- No modules are loaded: just load velocityget (
modprobe velocityget) - The module supplied with the kernel is loaded: you'll need to unload the existing module and load velocityget (
modprobe -r via_velocity;modprobe velocityget). You will also need to find a way to ensure the correct module loads during startup. - The viavelocity driver was compiled into the kernel: you need to rebuild the kernel either without the viavelocity driver, or with via_velocity built as a module.
Posted by spiffed at 8:05 PM | Comments (0)