[U-Boot] Design principles

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Detlev Zundel,

In message <m27hozgrrn.fsf at ohwell.denx.de> you wrote:
> 
> > I was referring to this part of Heikos mail:
> >
> >> While writing this, and realizing that this behaviour is a feature,
> >> maybe this problem occur on other network drivers on arm plattforms
> >> too ... hah, found one:
> >> 
> >> drivers/net/kirkwood_egiga.c
> >> 
> >> did it in the same way as drivers/net/fec_mxc.c ... Ok, it is
> >> in line with uboot standard, but arm plattforms which booting
> >> linux without doing network trafic under uboot tend to have
> >> different mac addresses ...
> >> 
> >> This should be solved!
> >
> > The "Please include in your fix" means that the same bug fix as
> > implemented for the fec_mxc driver should also be applied to the
> > kirkwood_egiga driver - I see no sense in knowing the same bug is in
> > two files and fixing it in just one.
> 
> We are drifing apart even more.  I do not say that I grasp every part of
> the kirkwood_egiga driver, but for me it seems like it only reads
> the ethaddr environment addresses which I fail to see why it does that.

I think it does so to initialize the envrionment with a (semi-) random
private MAC address if none is set.

> What I cannot see is that it programs the mac address in any way.  So
> what exactly is the bug you are referring to here and how do you "support
> a pragmatic fix"?

I did not look at that driver until now. It was Heiko who said that
"this problem occur on other network drivers" and lists
kirkwood_egiga as an example.


My request was to apply the fix that Heiko submitted for fec_mxc.c to
all other drivers as well that have the sam problem (as far as we
know about these, of course). So if kirkwood_egiga is clean (in this
respect), there is no need to change it.

I only want to make sure that "this problem occur on other network
drivers" does not slip through, but that any such drivers we know
about gt fixed as well.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
In general, if you think something isn't in Perl, try it out, because
it usually is :-) - Larry Wall in <1991Jul31.174523.9447 at netlabs.com>