From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeff Garzik Subject: Re: Patch for link detection for R8169 Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2005 21:56:01 -0400 Message-ID: <431E48B1.7050600@pobox.com> References: <431DA887.2010008@zabrze.zigzag.pl> <20050906194602.GA20862@electric-eye.fr.zoreil.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Miroslaw Mieszczak , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Netdev List Return-path: To: Francois Romieu In-Reply-To: <20050906194602.GA20862@electric-eye.fr.zoreil.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org Francois Romieu wrote: > Miroslaw Mieszczak : > >>There is a patch to driver of RLT8169 network card. This match make >>possible detection of the link status even if network interface is down. >>This is usefull for laptop users. > > > (side note: there is maintainer entry for the r8169 and network related > patches are welcome on netdev@vger.kernel.org) > > Can you elaborate why it is usefull for laptop users ? > > I am sceptical: tg3/bn2x/skge do not seem to allow it either. > > Jeff, is it a requirement ? Generally most drivers power down hardware, MAC at least, when the interface is down. As such, many drivers do not (cannot), as written, report any useful link information. IF the phy is not powered down, when the interface goes down, and IF hardware permits, it would certainly be nice to report link state when interface is down. This is a hardware-dependent, driver-dependent choice. Jeff