Subject: Re: The ultimate TOE design

From: Jeff Garzik <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 17:23:49 -0400

David S. Miller wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 17:08:18 -0400
> Jeff Garzik <[email-masked]> 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.