[U-Boot] [PATCH v7 RESEND 5/5] usbeth: asix: Do a fast init if link already established

[Mike Frysinger]

On Friday, June 10, 2011 18:22:06 Simon Glass wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 1:09 PM, Mike Frysinger <vapier at gentoo.org> wrote:
> > On Friday, June 10, 2011 11:04:11 Simon Glass wrote:
> >> The Asix driver takes the link down during init() and then brings it
> >> back up. This commit changes this so that if a link has already been
> >> established successfully we simply check that the link is still good.
> >> 
> >> This reduces the delay between successive network commands.
> > 
> > i'm not sure about this.  i think this is a general issue to all net
> > devices and should be resolved there rather than making diff net drivers
> > behave differently based on how the maintainer felt like going.
> > 
> > i also vaguely recall there being discussions on this topic recently.
> 
> OK perhaps my understanding is incorrect.
> 
> I saw discussion about the SMSC driver and whether half should do
> something there. I changed it to stop packet reception.
> 
> In my view it is correct for it to stop packet reception but keep the
> link up. Bringing the link down and up takes a few seconds, which adds
> delay between bootp and tftp. We don't want that.

yes, but i'm saying that this needs to be decided at a higher level and then 
documented rather than changing diff drivers to behave differently.  i'm not 
against making changes here to make things operate more smoothly, but i am 
against undocumented fragmentation, especially when the networking layer in u-
boot is already a confusing mine field for people.

the current behavior is for the device to be completely taken down at halt() 
and completely brought up at init() time.  you're proposing something else, so 
let's do it as a proper proposal and not a single driver change.
-mike
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