Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list netdev); Tue, 17 Jun 2003 23:58:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from www.linux.org.uk (parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk [195.92.249.252]) by oss.sgi.com (8.12.9/8.12.9) with SMTP id h5I6wX2x021947 for ; Tue, 17 Jun 2003 23:58:34 -0700 Received: from rdu26-227-011.nc.rr.com ([66.26.227.11] helo=pobox.com) by www.linux.org.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.14) id 19SP1x-0001Vx-0e; Tue, 17 Jun 2003 23:34:21 +0100 Message-ID: <3EEF9762.2040900@pobox.com> Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2003 18:34:10 -0400 From: Jeff Garzik Organization: none User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021213 Debian/1.2.1-2.bunk X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "J.A. Magallon" CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-net@vger.kernel.org, netdev@oss.sgi.com Subject: Re: [PATCHES] 2.4.x net driver updates References: <20030612194926.GA7653@gtf.org> <20030617222750.GE13990@werewolf.able.es> In-Reply-To: <20030617222750.GE13990@werewolf.able.es> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-archive-position: 3384 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: netdev-bounce@oss.sgi.com Errors-to: netdev-bounce@oss.sgi.com X-original-sender: jgarzik@pobox.com Precedence: bulk X-list: netdev J.A. Magallon wrote: > On 06.12, Jeff Garzik wrote: > >>BK users may issue a >> >> bk pull bk://kernel.bkbits.net/jgarzik/net-drivers-2.4 >> >>Others may download the patch from >> >>ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/jgarzik/patchkits/2.4/2.4.21-rc8-netdrvr2.patch.bz2 >> > > > Any info about the RX_POLLING (NAPI) option for e1000 ? > What is that for ? NAPI enables a software polling mode, or software interrupt migitation if you prefer to call it that. It kicks in at moderate to high packet rates, allows the net stack to more globally balance net traffic, and avoids problems associated with high packet load / DoS situations which would otherwise max out a cpu. But it's a new feature, so being conservative there is a staged rollout, with NAPI support in e100[0] being an option that can be turned off. Some drivers like tg3 simply always enable NAPI. Jeff