Subject: Re: Submission for S2io 10GbE driver

From: Jeff Garzik <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:08:32 -0500

Leonid Grossman wrote:
> The loopback test is there as a part of the ethtool's diagnostic option.
> 
> 
> There are pros and cons of having the test in there I guess, anyone else
> has an opinion on this?
> 
> Do other net drivers normally support loopback and other diag tests as a
> part of the ethtool support,
> or they provide little/no support for the option and ship a standalone
> diag program instead?

The ethtool diag stuff is more of a quick sanity test than anything 
exhaustive.

I definitely want to discourage tons of test code in drivers, as its 
code that users will almost-never run, it bloats the driver, and can be 
done with a special diag-only driver or diag program (or a combination 
of both).

A lot of the 10/100 drivers originated from Donald Becker, who typically 
creates a userland (i.e. separate) diag program for each driver he writes.

	Jeff