Hi,
Thank you all guys for your replies.
One thing that is not relevant to the post, which is that I did not get any email notifications except for the first reply from KemyLand, and I just logged in to reply to him after I got the driver working, and I found all of your replies.
Okay, the important thing is that I have got the driver working with some glitches that I am now working on, despite the "easy" answer from KemyLand
I just started from the e1000 driver I already have.
What I needed actually is some sort of info and direction rather than how to do it. What I needed, after reaching partially a working driver, is that I can start with the e1000 to make it work with the Intel Ethernet Connection I217 ethernet card; this is basically the kind of stuff I expect to get from OSDev. Basically to find someone who have done it before and can assure me that I am on the right track without necessarily telling me how to do it, of course if I can get more details on how to do it which I do get most of the time from OSDev it is most appreciated; basically something close to Combuster's reply.
I don't have a problem with reading 370 pages in essence, but reading 370 pages of "Inel Datasheet" to reach this information which is "I can use e1000" with some modification to make it work is kind of a waste of time. In my opinion Intel data sheets are very dry and are only good if you know what you are looking for, and unfortunately I did not. Such manuals and data sheets have no chronological order and does not show in most of the cases the rational of the Intel designer of the corresponding device. Moreover, I am in the middle of my PhD. and I do read a lot every day, basically reading is a normal daily practice for me, so I have no problem with reading something that I can learn from, but not 370 pages of data sheet without any confirmed hope that it will give me what I want.
Basically, the problem with Intel manuals and data sheets is that they are written for someone who already understand and they don't teach anything, they just state facts in a dry manner, and here comes the benefit of something like OSDev, complement the facts with a practical knowledge.
Anyways, I think that one of the beneficial things that one can do before reading 370 pages is to ask, may be you can get an answer that will direct you to what you should read and short cut a lot of unimportant reading that you might do just because you are afraid of missing something.
Finally, I really appreciate this forum and I have learned a lot from it and I would have spent more time to get such knowledge if it were not OSDev, I also appreciate the amount of work and time being put from you guys to answer questions, it is a tremendous free service that really means a lot to people like me; please keep it up as we need it.
Thank you guys,
Karim.