[U-Boot-Users] Ethernet does not work on at91rm9200

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <367ED8C46538D7119DAC000A0D106744520D57 at elmegmbh.elmedmn.com> you wrote:
> There is an interesting thread about initializing the mac adress:
...

And the King (Russell, that is :-) spoke:

	That's a buggy driver then - drivers are supposed to reload the ether
	address into the chip on open() - if they don't, they're buggy.

and:

	Basically, the driver is supposed to read the MAC address at startup.
	On ->open, it is supposed to reprogram the MAC address back into the
	chip (but not the EEPROM, if any) whether or not it has been changed.

[Mind: this is about the _Linux_ drivers.]

This is what I've been telling you all the time: a Linux driver shall
not make any assumptions about any initialization being done (or  not
done)  by  a  boot  loader; instead, it is responsible to perform all
required initialization himself. So if you need to set a MAC  address
for  successful  operation  of the ethernet interface, then the Linux
ethernet driver MUST set the MAC address. Otherwise it is broken  and
needs fixing.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87  Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88  Email: wd at denx.de
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