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* INFORMATION: *
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README file for the LAN8710A ethernet board driver for BeagleBone Rev. A6a
created July 2013, JPEmbedded (info@jpembedded.eu)
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* INSTALLATION: *
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To install LAN8710A for BeagleBone under MINIX you execute 'netconf' as
usual. Select the LAN8710A driver from the list. Restart the system
and the driver should work.
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* TESTS: *
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Driver was tested using various tools, i. e.
* fetch - downloading file from the Internet and also local server. Every file
downloaded well, but speed was about 50-200 kB/s.
* ftp - downloading and uploading 20 MB file completed.
* ping - checking connection between BeagleBone and computer passed using stan -
dard settings, when we set ping requests interval to 200 ms it also
passed. But with 20 ms and 2 ms driver dropped some packets (20 ms -
about 20% loss, 2 ms - 50% loss).
* udpstat, hostaddr, dhcpd, ifconfig, arp gave proper results.
Tests passed, so driver meets the requirements of ethernet driver.
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* LIMITATION: *
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Download speed: 50-200 kB/s
Low bandwidth is probably caused by memory copy functions. Standard Linux driver
copies packets data directly to destination buffer using DMA. Minix driver needs
to do a safe copy (sys_safecopyfrom and sys_safecopyto) from local buffer to the
system buffer. This operation slows down the whole driver.
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