[U-Boot] Defer net initialization

[Ben Warren]

HI Alexander,

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 3:14 AM, Alexander Stein <
alexander.stein at systec-electronic.com> wrote:

> Dear Wolgfang,
>
> Am Dienstag, 1. Juni 2010 10:48:25 schrieben Sie:
> > > I think this thread focus on another problem: setting the MAC address.
> I
> > > have a MAC in the ethaddr environment variable which gets used
> properly.
> >
> > You are wrong. The thread is exactly discussing the issue you are
> > suffering from. The whole discussion is basicly around the decision
> > which parts of the hardware (especially the Ethernet hardware) should
> > be initialized where and when.
> >
> > > I traced the call graph a bit down. So on every startup eth_initialize
> is
> > > called from start_armboot which then calls board_eth_init which calls
> > > macb_eth_initialize (in my board source). And macb_eth_initialize takes
> > > very long if no cable is plugged.
> >
> > Please read the docs referred to in the thread mentioned above
> > (especially doc/README.drivers.eth, but there are some pretty
> > explanative comments in the thread, which is why I point you at it) to
> > understand why the implementationon your board is not in line with the
> > intended design.
> >
> > eth_initialize should NOT wait for a link state.
> >
> > > How could I avoid calling eth_initialize during startup but before
> using
> > > the first net related command?
> >
> > You ask the wrong question. Ity is perfectly OK to call
> > eth_initialize() which is supposed to register the available network
> > drivers, but this should NOT include to actually initialize the
> > hardware. So it's the lower layers that are wrong in your port.
>
> This macb driver is fine so far. eth_initialize doesn't startup the
> hardware
> e.g. checking for link etc.
> The problem was a defined CONFIG_RESET_PHY_R. Inside reset_phy
> > eth_init(gd->bd);
> is called which actually starts the hardwre resulting in timeouts as
> described. According to the comment above this line (seems to be copied to
> every at91 board implementation) this is only needed if linux has a NFS
> root
> which needs a preinitialized ethernet device.
> But as we have a jffs2 rootfs this could be ignored.
>
Yes, you've found the root cause.  Some (maybe all) AT91 boards call call
eth_init() during their initialization, which can take time.  My
understanding is that this was done to ensure a programmed MAC address.

I added code recently to always program MAC addresses, hoping that we could
then get rid of all these calls.  I encourage you to either try to make the
changes yourself, or I can build you an untested patch to try.

>

Thanks for your hints and help.
>
> Best regards
> Alexander


regards,
Ben