[U-Boot-Users] Transfer MAC address from u-boot to Linux kernel

[Marius Groeger]

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Robert Schwebel wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 05:45:35PM +0100, Marius Groeger wrote:
> > As usual, it depends. On PPCs for example, the bd_info structure is
> > passed into the kernel, and drivers can access the MAC address from
> > there. The right way to do it on ARM would probably be to define a
> > corresponding tag.
>
> Hmm. That's not very generic, which means that the drivers have to be
> architecture dependend as well, and that's bad.

Absolutely. One of the biggest shortcomings of Linux is the lack of
having such things properly defined as a BSP layer across all the
platforms. But then again, obtaining the MAC address IS highly
platform dependent. Asking the boot-loader is just one way. There even
are many boards that can boot off various boot-loaders. I don't
believe that is ever going to be resolved cleanly.

Regards
Marius

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Marius Groeger           SYSGO Real-Time Solutions AG       mgroeger at sysgo.de
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