[ECOS] ns/dp83902a (NE2000) driver: endianness

[Rutger Hofman]

(Context: I am porting a driver for the ASIX AX88796B Ethernet chip that 
is an NE2000-compatible; it is used on our new board, see 
http://www.rfidguardian.org)

If I read the NS DP83902A datasheet correctly, that chip is 
little-endian. It appears to me, however, that the driver was developed 
on a big-endian platform: it byteswaps all 16bit accesses.

Some varieties of NE2000-derived drivers already swap bytes again to fix 
this endianness issue. In 2003, Mikael Starvik also reported that the 
endianness was wrong for him 
(http://sourceware.org/ml/ecos-discuss/2003-03/msg00356.html).

I think the correct approach is to use the CPU's endianness macros, and 
byteswap only when the CPU is big-endian.

Shall I change the driver this way and send in a patch? Which derived 
Ethernet drivers are candidates to be broken by such a change?

Rutger Hofman
VU Amsterdam


-- 
Before posting, please read the FAQ: http://ecos.sourceware.org/fom/ecos
and search the list archive: http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/ecos-discuss