[systemd-devel] pci.ids confusion

[Kay Sievers]

On Sun, Apr 13, 2014 at 6:58 AM, Jerome Leclanche <adys.wh at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is a followup of a chat on #systemd. The pciids-devel list is
> dead and someone recommended I post here instead.
> While browsing some debug logs, I came accross a confusing message:
> "systemd[1]: Found device M4A785TD Motherboard". I was even more
> confused since I don't actually have a M4A785TD but a P7P55D-E DELUXE.
> Turns out this is one of my two ethernet adapters. Specifically, in
> hwdata/pci.ids, "1019 8168  RTL8111/8168 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
> controller".
> Out of curiousity I started digging in the pci.ids file (10ec  Realtek
> Semiconductor Co., Ltd. around line 9120). I'm trying to understand
> the format but it's looking like motherboards are a subsystem of their
> own ethernet adapter. This is further confirmed with lspci:
>
> 05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
> RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 03)
>         Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. M4A785TD Motherboard
>
> I'd love to submit a fix but this is very counter-intuitive. Can
> anyone shed some light on it?

The PCI database contains a lot of wrong, mindlessly added, and
inconsistent data; some strings just do not make much sense, and there
seems to be not much effort to correct it.

I pushed a change to show the "primary" string too; it is all not
pretty, but should be less confusing that what you see today:
  http://cgit.freedesktop.org/systemd/systemd/commit/?id=d060b62fcb4746d3758c567e9379c6728a035b66

Thanks,
Kay