Looking for device to write device driver for

Looking for device to write device driver for

[Kip Macy]

This may well be a question whose appropriate response is RTFM. 
However, I did look first. 

I am taking a class on writing device drivers for Linux. I am currently
looking for a device to write a driver for. I first tried to get the
engineering specification for my soundcard, but after much frustration I
gave up on dealing with the manufacturer. I then tried to get the
interface information from 3com on their new 3cr990 card to add IPsec
offload support to the linux driver. They responded by telling me that due
to IP-heavy nature of the product that they would not be releasing the
interface. It was later explained to me (in different terms) that most
cards on the market are fundamentally commodity items and as such the only
way that manufacturers can ensure their margins is by obscuring the
interface so that other manufacturers don't use the same interface and
undercut them.

This leads to my question: Is there some central resource for listing
unsupported cards that people have expressed an interest in seeing
supported. The closest I could find was Cosource, but that is fairly
limited.

		-Kip

Re: Looking for device to write device driver for

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> This may well be a question whose appropriate response is RTFM. 
> However, I did look first. 

What about 3com homefree camera [or is it homeconnect?]?
It is usb and unsupported; however
figuring it out should not be that hard. [It is usb, after all.]

Another device worth linux driver is lucent winmodem: it already has
userspace driver [see linmodems.org], and "telephony" version of
that driver would be nice.
								Pavel
-- 
Philips Velo 1: 1"x4"x8", 300gram, 60, 12MB, 40bogomips, linux, mutt,
details at http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/velo/index.html.

Re: Looking for device to write device driver for

[Bogdan Costescu]

On Sun, 3 Jun 2001, Kip Macy wrote:

> I then tried to get the interface information from 3com on their new
> 3cr990 card to add IPsec offload support to the linux driver.

Which Linux driver ? They only provide a 2.2 one which is in an alpha
stage (as written in it!).

> They responded by telling me that due to IP-heavy nature of the product
> that they would not be releasing the interface.

You were much luckier than me. To me, they said that they don't provide
any support for Linux with these cards when I was only asking for docs for
how to use their own firmware to do basic operations!

Sincerely,

Bogdan Costescu

IWR - Interdisziplinaeres Zentrum fuer Wissenschaftliches Rechnen
Universitaet Heidelberg, INF 368, D-69120 Heidelberg, GERMANY
Telephone: +49 6221 54 8869, Telefax: +49 6221 54 8868
E-mail: Bogdan.Costescu@IWR.Uni-Heidelberg.De