Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next 1/3] net: nixge: Add support for fixed-link subnodes

From: Andrew Lunn <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 19:54:19 +0200

> > The hardware has MDIO, but you don't have a PHY connected on it, and
> > use fixed link.
> 
> Since it's an FPGA design in that case we'd probably build the hardware without
> MDIO to save resources.

You can save resources, but is it worth the complexity else where,
like in the software?

> > It is important you have the mdio subnode, with PHYs and switches as
> > children. The driver currently gets this wrong, it uses
> > pdev->dev.of_node.
> 
> Oh, whoops.

Yes, and i also missed it. I generally review all new network drivers
and look at their MDIO and PHY code.

> Any good examples of drivers doing it right? Is the one going with
> the DT snippet above a good example?

That comes from the Freescale fec_main.c. It only supports DT, and
always uses of_mdiobus_register. You need to be a bit more flexible
for when you don't have DT. I'm not sure there are good example of
this, since they either don't need this flexibility, or they get it
wrong :-(

      Andrew