From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from gate.crashing.org (gate.crashing.org [63.228.1.57]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by ozlabs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7C20E67A6C for ; Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:11:54 +1100 (EST) From: Benjamin Herrenschmidt To: James Chapman In-Reply-To: <4230D1AC.5070506@katalix.com> References: <1107b64b01fb8e9a6c84359bb56881a6@freescale.com> <1110334456.32556.21.camel@gaston> <20050308194229.41c23707.davem@davemloft.net> <1110340214.32524.32.camel@gaston> <57a429f8eb807987d88b06129861d507@freescale.com> <4230D1AC.5070506@katalix.com> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:06:32 +1100 Message-Id: <1110495992.32525.290.camel@gaston> Mime-Version: 1.0 Cc: netdev@oss.sgi.com, "David S. Miller" , linuxppc-embedded@ozlabs.org Subject: Re: RFC: PHY Abstraction Layer II List-Id: Linux on Embedded PowerPC Developers Mail List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On Thu, 2005-03-10 at 23:01 +0000, James Chapman wrote: > Hi Andy, > > Can you elaborate on why this phy abstraction is needed? > > In your original post, you mentioned that you were going to post a > patch to show how your code would be hooked up in an existing net > driver. Did I miss it? It would help in understanding the pros and cons > of using genphy over using plain old mii.c. > > btw, I recently posted a patch to add GigE support to mii.c which is > in Jeff's netdev-2.6 queue. Some register definitions were added in > mii.h that will collide with yours. A variety of PHY chips require special cases that aren't handled by the generic mii code. The PHY driver layer allows to plug PHY specific drivers, with genphy just being the "default" for sane chips. Also, I think Andy added more to the PHY layer than what mii does, like support for the interrupt or timer based link management etc... which tend to be the same in a lot of drivers. Ben.