From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Andrew Lunn Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next 3/3] net: dsa: mv88e6xxx: make global2 code optional Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 16:55:11 +0200 Message-ID: <20160902145511.GH16864@lunn.ch> References: <20160902120819.10773-1-vivien.didelot@savoirfairelinux.com> <20160902120819.10773-4-vivien.didelot@savoirfairelinux.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, kernel@savoirfairelinux.com, "David S. Miller" , Florian Fainelli To: Vivien Didelot Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20160902120819.10773-4-vivien.didelot@savoirfairelinux.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 08:08:19AM -0400, Vivien Didelot wrote: > Since not every chip has a Global2 set of registers, make its support > optional, in which case the related functions will return -EOPNOTSUPP. > > This also allows to reduce the size of the mv88e6xxx driver for devices > such as home routers embedding Ethernet chips without Global2 support. Hi Vivien I've no problems with splitting this out. However, making it optional? I don't think that is a good idea. 1) If you don't have this, and you should, it looks like the PHYs stop working, and since you cannot set the switch MAC address, maybe Pause frames are broken. 2) Distros won't build a kernel per target hardware. They probably build a kernel per SoC vendor. That means, they will have this optional code built all the time. Very few builds will leave it out. So the only way i think making this optional, is if it is a kernel module, and it gets loaded if needed. Andrew