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