Intel PCIe 1Gig NIC driver changes coming

Folks -

Auke Kok, one of the maintainers of the e1000/e1000e driver posted the
following to a number of the linux development mailing lists. I am
posting it here with Auke's permission to make sure that no one gets
caught off-guard:

From kernel 2.6.26 onward all *PCI Express* device IDs previously
supported by e1000 will be moving to the e1000e driver. This
includes ich8 and ich9 onboard LAN, server 5000 platform onboard
LAN (es2) and 82571/2/3 chipset based adapters and variants.

If you have not already enabled CONFIG_E1000E make sure that you
do so. You can already do this with 2.6.25. From 2.6.26 on this
change will be required if you have such a device.

It is also worthwhile to note you will have to update your
modprobe.conf or equivalent file to point existing interfaces to
the new driver.

For clarity, please note that all 8254x devices are only supported
by e1000, even if they are hidden behind a PCI Express bridge.
They are still regular PCI or PCI-X devices.

Intel will continue to support both e1000 and e1000e drivers in the
kernel.

--
The half-octopus rule: Forwarned is four-armed...
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...