| 1 Jun 2025 |
 emily | there's some I2C protocol you talk to the MAC over | 12:11:11 |
| emily | and people have gotten it to work | 12:11:20 |
| emily | for copper stuff at least | 12:11:24 |
| emily | but the Realtek BASE-T transceivers run too hot :( | 12:11:36 |
 K900 | Maybe with rollball stuff | 12:11:42 |
 magic_rb | Tf is rollball | 12:11:51 |
| emily | I have no idea what "rollball" means btw. | 12:11:53 |
| emily | or "inband". | 12:11:56 |
| emily | K900: also, here's the patch I was thinking about, for the R3 but it's the same PCS so should be relevant for R4 from what i've read: https://github.com/ericwoud/linux/commit/e44c36071f99acf1d027f25f3a3801b737a4547a. this is the thing about how the MAC can't do "inbound" with 2500BASE-X. it's not in the guy's current tree so maybe it was actually merged upstream in some form? | 12:12:06 |
| emily | there are also quirks for individual modules like https://github.com/ericwoud/linux/commit/622be57da4f9780c7031c21edebda1b93d99f992 | 12:12:22 |
| K900 | Rollball is basically a way to just bypass the entire SFP standard | 12:12:40 |
| K900 | And poke the phy directly in a vendor specific way | 12:12:48 |
| emily | why is it called that. | 12:12:55 |
| K900 | Which sometimes lets you do things | 12:12:55 |
| magic_rb | @emilazy:matrix.org i am so sorry for dragging you into this | 12:13:34 |
| magic_rb | lol | 12:13:37 |
| emily | I APPRECIATE THE APOLOGY | 12:13:46 |
| K900 | In reply to @emilazy:matrix.org
why is it called that. Because the company that presumably designed it is named Rollball | 12:14:02 |
| K900 | But they're in Shenzhen | 12:14:07 |
| emily | lol. | 12:14:11 |
| K900 | So it's entirely possible they didn't design it | 12:14:20 |
| emily | anyway I'd like to understand what's going on here and maybe it'd also help you with your crimes? | 12:14:31 |
| emily | btw are the higher-rate SFP standards less fucked? like did they make things that aren't awful for 100G or whatever or is it just hell all the way up? | 12:14:52 |
| K900 | At higher rates I think most things just do <whatever>MII | 12:16:03 |
| magic_rb | 400 is a thing i think too, my friends new workplace has 400 between datacenters :O | 12:16:12 |
| emily | I think even 800 is. I don't know if it's "a thing you can buy" but it's a thing | 12:17:17 |
| magic_rb | you can definitely buy it, you just may not be able to afford it unless you sell a few kidneys :P | 12:18:15 |
| magic_rb | "when people donate a kidney theyre praised, when i show up and donate 4 i get arrested" | 12:18:31 |
| emily | I mean, 800 is standardized. I don't know if the products actually exist | 12:20:26 |
| emily | actually I doubt this went upstream in this form – I remember feedback like "uh, no, don't touch phylink directly for this" | 12:21:16 |
