Subject: Re: [PATCH 14/16] RealView: Use the in-kernel smc911x.c driver on RealView

From: Russell King - ARM Linux <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:46:53 +0100

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 11:26:42AM +0100, [email-masked] wrote:
> Almost all the feedback I've had has been positive, but I've had a few
> "can't you just fix the in-tree driver?" responses.  The trouble is it's
> not a *small* piece of work!

Which is reasonable given your summary, since...

> smsc911x
> - uses functions instead of macros, making it more readable
> - uses napi (and manages significantly higher throughput because of it)
> - uses phylib
> - passes checkpatch.pl
> - has workarounds for older LAN911x variants
> 
> smc911x
> - is already in-tree (not really technical, but still important)
> - has support for pxa dma*
> - has dynamic bus width config

.. we want to avoid having two drivers for the same device, but not
supporting these features would be seen as a regression.