Re: The ultimate TOE design

[Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@xxxxxxxxx>]

David S. Miller wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 17:08:18 -0400
> Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> > There's nothing inherently wrong with sticking a computer running
> > Linux inside another computer ;-)
>
> And we already support that :-)
>
> Plus we have things like TSO too but that doesn't require a full Linux
> instance to realize on a networking port.
> Simple silicon implements this already.
> I don't see how that differs from your "big MTU" ideas.

Part of this is about how to talk to business people.... marketing.

The typical definition of TOE is "offload 90+% of the net stack", as 
opposed to "TCP assist", which is stuff like TSO.
If people ask about how to support TOE in Linux, you can say "sure, we 
_already_ support TOE, just stick Linux on a PCI card" rather than "no 
we don't support it."
And wha-la, we support TOE with zero code changes ;-)

        Jeff, who would love to have a bunch of Athlons
        on PCI cards to play with.