Difference between the iether and the igelan drivers

[Robert_Jewell]

Can anyone explain what the difference is between the iether Gigabit Ethernet driver and the igelan Gigabit Ethernet driver?

All I can seem to see is that interface cards will support one or the other (though that is something I cannot say definitively). Release notes for each of the two don't seem to help much:

http://docs.hp.com/en/12450/GigEther-01ReleaseNoteDec2007.pdf

http://docs.hp.com/en/12606/Iether-00ReleaseNoteDec2007.pdf

I have also encountered the Ethernet Support Guide, which is a great document, but doesn't really tell me what the difference is between them (and why we need two of them is this world).

http://docs.hp.com/en/5969-7066/5969-7066.pdf

Thanks in advance.

-Bob

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

> All I can seem to see is that interface cards will support one or the other

Different hardware on the boards. At the LAN connector they support Gbit connections but internally, the firmware and card designs are very different. The driver will lock onto the correct card(s) when ioscan sees the new hardware. If the driver is not installed, then the card will not be claimed.

[Robert_Jewell]

Thanks Bill. So basically, some interface cards will use one driver vs the other based upon their components and how they were made.

HP has these two Gigabit Ethernet drivers to handle the variations between OEM's, firmware, etc.

-Bob

[Kapil Jha]

Drivers are hardware dependent and they are different for different hardware they make hardware work on the board,
OS comes very late.

Drivers are installed to initialize the hardware.

BR,
Kapil+

[vemana]

Here is the simple difference that i had in my mind.

iether is the HP-UX driver for Intel 8254X family GigE controllers.

igelan is the HP-UX driver for Broadcom 570X family GigE controllers.