Sun SPARC Ethernet adapters and LDoms virtual networking
Ethernet drivers for Sun Microsystems hardware: 1990s SBUS and PCI cards (Happy Meal, BigMAC, QuadEthernet), early-2000s gigabit chips (GEM, Cassini, Neptune/NIU), and the sun4v virtual NIC and switch used by guests inside Oracle VM Server for SPARC logical domains.
recommendation
Worth keeping but documenting its niche. The physical Sun NICs are long out of production and the Kconfig help still points at archived Oracle manuals, but the directory is not dormant: niu received a net-next update as recently as January 2026 and sunvnet was touched in August 2024. The sunvnet and ldmvsw pieces remain relevant to Oracle VM Server for SPARC logical-domain networking, which Oracle still documents, so the code earns its place as a small but live SPARC virtualization path alongside legacy hardware support.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
`niu.c` received a net-next functional update in January 2026, showing the directory is still seeing real upstream maintenance.
- lore.kernel.org
`sunvnet.c` received a net-next update in August 2024, showing the Sun LDoms virtual-network side is still maintained.
- docs.oracle.com
Oracle VM Server for SPARC still documents `vnet` and `vsw` style virtual networking, consistent with ongoing niche deployment of the sun4v virtual drivers.
- docs.oracle.com
Oracle VM Server for SPARC 3.6 documentation remains published, indicating the platform/virtualization stack still exists as a niche supported environment rather than a removed relic.
- docs.oracle.com
Kernel Kconfig points `sungem` at an old Oracle manual for Sun GigabitEthernet/P 2.0, reinforcing that the physical Sun NICs here are legacy-era hardware.
- docs.oracle.com
Kernel Kconfig points `cassini` at an old Oracle manual for Sun GigaSwift Ethernet, likewise indicating legacy physical hardware rather than current new-sold adapters.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Not a removal candidate: sampled lore history shows ongoing upstream work, including direct net-next touches for `niu` (via `lore_file_timeline`) and `sunvnet` (via `lore_file_timeline`), with no removal-thread evidence in the sampled activity. Deployment looks mixed: old SBUS/PCI Sun NICs are legacy/mostly obsolete, but `sunvnet`/`ldmvsw` still map to Oracle SPARC LDoms virtual networking documented on docs.oracle.com (obtained by web search). The Oracle manual URLs for GEM/Cassini were obtained by shell-reading `drivers/net/ethernet/sun/Kconfig`. Result: keep the directory, but annotate it as mostly legacy hardware plus a niche SPARC virtualization path.