home | help
GEM(4)			     Kernel Interfaces Manual			  GEM(4)

NAME
     gem -- ERI/GEM/GMAC Ethernet device driver

SYNOPSIS
     To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your
     kernel configuration file:

	   device miibus
	   device gem

     Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the
     following line in loader.conf(5):

	   if_gem_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION
     The gem driver provides support for the GMac Ethernet hardware found mostly
     in  the last Apple PowerBooks G3s and most G4-based Apple hardware, as well
     as many Sun UltraSPARCs.

HARDWARE
     Chips supported by the gem driver include:

     *	 Apple GMAC
     *	 Sun ERI 10/100 Mbps Ethernet
     *	 Sun GEM Gigabit Ethernet

     The following add-on cards are known to work with the gem	driver	at  this
     time:

     *	 Sun Gigabit Ethernet PCI 2.0/3.0 (GBE/P) (part no. 501-4373)

NOTES
     On sparc64 the gem driver respects the local-mac-address? system configura-
     tion  variable which can be set in the Open Firmware boot monitor using the
     setenv command or by eeprom(8).  If set to "false" (the default),	the  gem
     driver  will  use	the system's default MAC address for all of its devices.
     If set to "true", the unique MAC address  of  each  interface  is	used  if
     present rather than the system's default MAC address.

     Supported	interfaces having their own MAC address include the on-board Sun
     ERI 10/100 Mbps on boards equipped with more than	one  Ethernet  interface
     and the Sun Gigabit Ethernet 2.0/3.0 GBE add-on cards.

CAVEATS
     Currently	the  gem  driver  fails  to  attach to Sun Gigabit Ethernet SBus
     2.0/3.0 (GBE/S) cards, as no SBus front-end has been written so far.

SEE ALSO
     altq(4), miibus(4), netintro(4), eeprom(8), ifconfig(8)

HISTORY
     The gem device driver appeared in NetBSD 1.6.  The first FreeBSD version to
     include it was FreeBSD 5.0.

AUTHORS
     The gem driver was written by Eduardo Horvath  <eeh@NetBSD.org>.	The  man
     page was written by Thomas Klausner <wiz@NetBSD.org>.

FreeBSD 7.2			January 15, 2009			  GEM(4)

home | help