Re: [PATCH 3/3] Intel IXP4xx network drivers

Christian Hohnstaedt
2007-05-07T18:04:34Z

On Mon, May 07, 2007 at 07:12:49PM +0200, Krzysztof Halasa wrote:
> Michael-Luke Jones <mlj28@cam.ac.uk> writes:
>
> > Code placement:
> > Queue Manager & NPE code => arch/arm/mach-ixp4xx
> > WAN driver code => drivers/net/wan
> > Eth code => drivers/net/arm
>
> Why would you want such placement?
> Potential problems: header files would have to be moved to
> include/asm-arm = headers pollution.
> All 4 drivers are, in fact, network (related) drivers.
No.

- qmgr is a versatile hardware fifo stack, that is currently
used to exchange data with the NPE.

- the NPE can also be used as DMA engine and for crypto operations.
Both are not network related.
Additionally, the NPE is not only ixp4xx related, but is
also used in IXP23xx CPUs, so it could be placed in
arch/arm/common or arch/arm/xscale ?

- The MAC is used on IXP23xx, too. So the drivers for
both CPU familys only differ in the way they exchange
network packets between the NPE and the kernel.

>
> drivers/net/arm would probably make (some) sense if it was
> a single (or not so single) Ethernet driver.
If Queue Manager & NPE move to arch/.... , it can be a single file.

Christian Hohnstaedt

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Christian Hohnstaedt
Software Engineer

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