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soc:2010:andreif:journal:week4 [2010/06/18 09:27] andreif |
soc:2010:andreif:journal:week4 [2010/06/20 12:27] (current) andreif |
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| ==== Day 5 [ Fri 18 Jun 2010 ] ==== | ==== Day 5 [ Fri 18 Jun 2010 ] ==== | ||
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| + | Git commit: [[http://git.etherboot.org/?p=people/andreif/gpxe.git;a=commit;h=479f777706bb4c64f9a244846f7d63bdf1c47ae7|479f777706bb4c64f9a244846f7d63bdf1c47ae7]] | ||
| After making the pcnet32 modifications I decided to test it again, on all three vms: VMWare, VBox and Qemu. I realised then that I haven't been testing the driver as thoroughly as I should have. The following table shows the results I get after downloading an 100mb image five times in a row. The results are the following: | After making the pcnet32 modifications I decided to test it again, on all three vms: VMWare, VBox and Qemu. I realised then that I haven't been testing the driver as thoroughly as I should have. The following table shows the results I get after downloading an 100mb image five times in a row. The results are the following: | ||
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| Another problem is Virtual Box. I remember getting speeds similar to VMWare on VBox too, but these results show a different situation. I wonder | Another problem is Virtual Box. I remember getting speeds similar to VMWare on VBox too, but these results show a different situation. I wonder | ||
| - | what might be the cause of such big differences between the two. The e1000 driver performs similarly. | + | what might be the cause of such big differences between the two. The e1000 driver performs similarly. Here are two captures made with Wireshark that show the packet flow in VMWare and in VBox, for comparison: |
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| + | VMWARE | ||
| + | {{:soc:2010:andreif:journal:vmwarecapture.png?1000| VMWare capture}} | ||
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| + | VBOX | ||
| + | {{:soc:2010:andreif:journal:vboxcap.png?1000| Virtual Box capture}} | ||
| Note to self: Try Guo-Fu's TCP patch, that might improve things in VBox. | Note to self: Try Guo-Fu's TCP patch, that might improve things in VBox. | ||
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| Someone should really make a test suite for drivers. Perhaps this would be a good first script. | Someone should really make a test suite for drivers. Perhaps this would be a good first script. | ||
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| + | Tomorrow TODO: Finish patch, leave init_block like it was before, return error when MAC address is not valid. Post some details in the patch description, perhaps comparison against the old driver. | ||
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| + | ==== Day 6 [ Sat 19 Jun 2010 ] ==== | ||
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| + | I finished the pcnet32 patch today and I uploaded version 2 of the patch. Hopefully, people will find it ok. Stefan reports some results in KVM and apparently disabling the BIOS console yields some definitive speed improvements which I will have to test too in VBox. | ||
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| + | I also received a response from one of the forcedeth driver devs and it was awesome that he took some time to write me back. The forcedeth driver writing will mostly be a direct port of the Linux one. | ||
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| + | Another small project rose up today, I have to find out why gPXE is so slow in VBox. I don't know yet if the BIOS thing is causing it, but I will find out these days. | ||
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| + | ==== Day 7 [ Sun 20 Jun 2010 ] ==== | ||
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| + | Version 3 of the patch is up. At this rate, I will probably hold the record for most revisions of a patch :). Also sent an email to Andrew de Quincey regarding forcedeth documentation. | ||
