ARCnet for Linux

I'm the author of the ARCnet (as opposed to Ethernet) driver for Linux, and here is my latest attempt at providing support for the thing.

Directly related:

• Linux 2.2.x has a slightly broken, but mostly working version (3.02) of the driver built in.

  If you want, you can also try my new 3.94 BETA test version that will appear in Linux 2.3.x or a later 2.2.x release. I tested it only with kernels 2.2.12 and 2.2.14. If you test it, tell me! It really helps the debugging process! 3.9x versions have support for RAW arcnet frames, PCI/PCMCIA cards, and the 10 Mbit COM20022 chip.

  Development of versions 3.80 through 4.00 has been sponsored by Contemporary Control Systems, Inc. and I've tested the new driver with their PCM20, PCI20, PCA20, and PCA66 cards. It works!

• Here is a copy of pcmcia-cs-3.1.8.tar.gz, which is the card services version I used to test the PCMCIA version of the driver.

• All the Linux-ARCnet documentation is now concentrated in one big document: the Linux-ARCnet HOWTO. It's written assuming you're using the 3.90 BETA driver.

• Linux 2.0.x has a well-tested and functional ARCnet driver. You don't need to upgrade it -- in fact, there's no newer driver version that works with 2.0.

• The official mailing list is operated by Tomasz Motylewski, which you can subscribe to by e-mailing a message "subscribe linux-arcnet YOUR REAL NAME" to listserv@tichy.ch.uj.edu.pl - thanks Tomasz. He has also made a WWW mailing list archive available!

Indirectly Related

• By popular demand, I have packaged up the set of free Novell drivers that I use on my Windows system in order to make ARCnet work optimally. With Windows 3.1 or WfWg, you will want Trumpet Winsock on top of this, and with Windows 95 you can use the built-in TCP/IP layer with the "Existing ODI driver" device (NOT the Win95 arcnet driver!).

• I have "ported" (in a disgustingly ugly way) tcpdump 3.0.3 to work with Linux-ARCnet. Here is the original Debian archive, a patch to upgrade it to understand Linux-ARCnet, compile on Pentiums, and work with Linux 1.3.84, and a precompiled binary of my patched version (for ELF with libc 5.2.18).

  Note that this patch does some ugly hacking with include files in order to make it compile properly with Linux 1.3.84's broken headers. The modified source will likely not compile under anything but Linux.

• Information in the Net-2-HOWTO and Ethernet-HOWTO still applies. Read them, but substitute "arc0" in wherever they say "eth0". Other HOWTO documents are also available.

• Novell has an FTP site and a WWW site with various DOS drivers that are compatible with mine.

• The Packet Driver directory on Simtelnet has the latest Crynwr packet driver collection including arcether.com, which is also compatible with my driver and (along with winpkt.com) allows you to use programs like Trumpet Winsock with ARCnet. The source code for all Crynwr drivers is available there as well.

Of course, it's broken, so we also have a patched version, submitted by Peter S. Fales (Peter.S.Fales@att.com) that works on both pre-386 and 386+ computers, and has smarter ARP handling. Thanks, Peter! It also contains little bits of patches by Stephen A. Wood, Vladimir Shergin, and myself.

In case you have problems with Peter's release (you shouldn't) the previous patched arcether files for both pre-386 and 386+ computers are still available.

The rather short patch file to the original arcether source code may be interesting for those of you who like x86 assembly. This is for the 386+ version. On top of that, apply Peter's patch to get his latest changes. I'll combine the two into a final unified diff later, if I have time.

• Harvard has a program called odipkt which lets a Novell driver act like a Crynwr driver, so that you can use it with all the cool packet driver stuff.

• Microsoft gives away a LAN Manager client for DOS and OS/2 (I can't get the OS/2 one to work). They also have an updated TCP/IP stack for WfWg. Now there's also a newer client for DOS that you might like better than the LANMAN one. None of these are compatible with the old version of Linux-ARCnet. Make sure you upgrade your Linux driver if you want to use them with Linux 1.2.13.

• David Gould (dgould@raider.grcc.cc.mi.us) sent in a "switch setting assistance" program for his PDI507 card. Given the settings you want, it should show you the switch settings you need. I haven't tried it, so good luck.

• Michael Kleis (mikle@stud.uni-sb.de) has translated the ARCnet poem into German:

  Der Treiber wurde fett und fleischig
  Aber meine Katze heißt immer noch Fifi

• Andrew J. Kroll, the world's first and longest-running Linux-ARCnet user, has made us a project logo. If you look really closely, you can see the token being passed.

Completely Unrelated

Here is a picture of Dave.