NEWS: The atl1 driver was released as part of kernel version 2.6.21 on April 27, 2007, and is now part of the mainline kernel.
NEWS: On Feb 9, 2007 the atl1 driver was merged into the mainline kernel with kernel version 2.6.20-git5.
NEWS: Attansic has been acquired by Atheros. See this press release for details.
This page is devoted to the Attansic L1 Gigabit Ethernet driver for Linux. The Attansic L1 is included as the onboard network device for the following Asus mainboards. (If you know of other mainboards that include this device, please email me.)
| A7SV (laptop) | F3SC (laptop) | F3SV (laptop) | M2A-MX |
| M2N8-VMX | M2V | M3A | P2-M2A590G (barebones) |
| P5B-E | P5B-MX/WIFI-AP | P5B-VMSE | P5E-VM HDMI |
| P5K | P5KC | P5KPL-VM | P5K-SE |
| P5K-V | P5L-MX | P5LD2-VM | P5L-VM 1394 |
| P51Sn (laptop) | P51Sr (laptop) |
Thanks to Xiong Huang of Attansic for writing the original vendor version of the driver and for granting permission to make the driver available for inclusion in the kernel. After obtaining permission from Attansic, the driver was initially submitted to the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) on September 27, 2006. After multiple review cycles, it was was accepted for inclusion in the mainline kernel and released as part of kernel version 2.6.21. It is now part of each new kernel released from kernel.org.
Jay Cliburn and Chris Snook are co-maintainers of the in-kernel atl1 driver.
Here is a link to the latest L1 driver released by Attansic, now Atheros.
| 1.2.40.2 | Vendor version released by Atheros on July 5, 2007 for kernel <=2.6.22.x |
IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a vendor version of the L1 driver. It was written by Attansic. We do not support this driver. It's offered here merely as a courtesy to make your life easier. If you have a problem with the driver, contact Attansic/Atheros directly.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The Attansic vendor version of drivers prior to 1.2.40.0 have a problem: TSO is broken, and that results in horrible transmit performance. It's fixed in 1.2.40.2. Don't use a vendor version older than 1.2.40.2!
Here are some drivers for the L1 that were adapted for inclusion in the mainline kernel. These were works in progress as we moved toward acceptance in late 2006 and early 2007. You should avoid these drivers and patches if you can. If you run a kernel older than 2.6.21, we recommend you use the current vendor driver above.
For the standalone drivers below, just untar the tarball, cd into the resulting directory, and execute "sudo make install". The driver should build and install itself.
The kernel patch version below requires that you build a new kernel. To apply the patch, take a look at these instructions.
| 2.0.6.1 | L1 standalone driver compatible with kernel 2.6.19 -- EXPERIMENTAL |
| 2.0.6.1 | L1 standalone driver compatible with kernel 2.6.20 -- EXPERIMENTAL |
| 2.0.6.1 | L1 kernel patch compatible with kernel 2.6.20 -- EXPERIMENTAL |
| 2.0.7 | L1 standalone driver compatible with kernel 2.6.19 -- EXPERIMENTAL |
| 2.0.7 | L1 standalone driver compatible with kernel 2.6.20 -- EXPERIMENTAL |
| 2.1.3 | L1 standalone driver compatible with kernel 2.6.23 |
| 2.1.3 | L1 standalone driver compatible with kernel 2.6.24 |
| 2.1.3 | L1 standalone driver compatible with kernel 2.6.25 |
1. Some Via chipsets don't play well with message signalled interrupts (MSI), and will generate a flood of APIC errors in dmesg or system logs when the atl1 driver starts sending and receiving packets. If this happens, modify your kernel's boot line and add this kernel parameter: pci=nomsi. A fix was added to 2.6.21.4 and later kernels, so you shouldn't see the error if you're running 2.6.21.4 or later.
2. There is a bug in the atl1 driver that results in a kernel hang or crash (oops) under heavy network load IF AND ONLY IF you have 4GB or more RAM in your system. This happens because of an L1 hardware design issue that is exposed by the atl1 driver. If you encounter this problem, modify your kernel's boot line and add this kernel parameter: mem=3900M. A fix was added to the 2.6.23 kernel.
3. Another atl1 bug affects older real-time (RT) kernels. The symptom is very sluggish network performance, accompanied by a log entry that looks like this:
date:time hostname kernel: network driver disabled raw interrupts: atl 1_xmit_frame+0x0/0x7c0 [atl1]
This problem was fixed in 2.6.23, and is fixed in all later kernels.
4. There is a bug in the driver that causes memory corruption during the shutdown of the interface if and only if you have 4GB or more RAM in your system (and your system utilizes all that memory). The bug has been solved and is in the process of being incorporated into kernel 2.6.26. It has been backported to 2.6.25.
If you don't see what you're looking for, just browse the ftp server.