AMD AM79c978 HomePNA broken on 12/12/02 release.

I apologize for not having a proper lspci dump...

But, in my effort to use the 12/12/02 release, I found that the system was not properly initializing my (Diamond-branded) AMD-based HomePNA card. The kernel would detect it fine, but seemed to be failing to initialize the PHY. If this is a Linux bug, rather than a Knoppix-specific one, FreeBSD's 'pcn' code should provide the documentation needed for a fix.

(For those unfamiliar, HomePNA is home phoneline networking. The 1.0/1.1 versions, as represented by this chipset, turn a 'line' of twisted pair into an ethernet segment, with about 1mbps peak throughput. The AMD chipset is the same as its 10baseT equivalent, and just requires the host to properly select the PHY.)

Information on the hardware from FreeBSD's dmesg (this is an early Diamond HomeFree card, with no 10baseT PHY- beware of 10mbit cards, as I'll note below):

pcn0: <AMD PCnet/Home HomePNA> port 0x70e0-0x70ff mem 0xf75fcfe0-0xf75fcfff irq
10 at device 13.0 on pci0
pcn0: Ethernet address: 00:90:00:02:4b:cf
miibus1: <MII bus> on pcn0
pnaphy0: <Am79c978 HomePNA PHY> on miibus1
pnaphy0: HomePNA

...

For the sake of completeness, 10mbps HomePNA exists, but that's HomePNA 2.0, which is Not Ethernet (but can easily encapsulate ethernet, if you have the pleasure of working for a company with access to the intellectual property. Linksys, Netgear, 2Wire, Compex and others have paid the fees and make 10mbps phoneline<->ethernet bridges and routers, but they'll set you back more than US$60 ea., because they're not targeted for per-host use- in the HomePNA Consortium's eyes, you're supposed to have one router, and a herd of Windows boxes with the cheap PCI or USB adapters). Basically, all HomePNA 2.0 PCI cards (3Com 3C410, etc) are based on a particular Broadcom chipset, and the only support for open-source systems is a binary kernel module for Linux, hidden somewhere on Linksys' site.

I had no luck getting the kernel module loaded under Knoppix, but I have little familiarity with the Linux kernel in general, being a BSDhead.

Ensuring the AMD PCNet driver supports HomePNA would be an easy fix, and much appreciated. (1.x devices can live on a 2.0 network, at the cost of tugging the whole segment down to 1mbps speeds.) If anyone'd care to toy with a 2.0 card and write a HOWTO for getting the module loaded (if it's indeed possible/compatible- it's *said* to only plays nice with certain 2.4 kernels), I could lend hardware to the effort.

I have the broadcom iLine and 3Com cards, and add my support for the request.

thanks in advance.

Can't say that I can be of much help here, but I'm glad to hear that these cards are supported in bsd and (perhaps) in the linux kernel. I've got a couple of Dimond hpna cards too. I used to use them with a 2wire based router. Certainly it's not as fast as cat5, but it's nice to not have to string cable sometimes (if you don't have wireless availbable). Please post back here if you make any headway with these.

If one can use MS Windows + Linux, than there is a solution for HPNA cards. I work this way:

- boot with win 98
- HPNA cadr starts as HPNA
- click on Start/restart
- boot with Linux and you can work normaly, card will stay in HPNA mode

To me, it is very hard to understand fact that card preserve HPNA status from win 98 to Linux, but it is true. I have win 98 on very small partition with only this purpose.

Please see http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/history/55454

The process to load the HomePNA module is fairly easy, I did it easily on my Knoopix HDD install on the 06-06 release. Works like a champ!

Have used it for 18 months or so on my MDK setup.

Good luck!