Subject: Re: [RFC 1/3] ARM: dts: imx28: Add description for L2 switch on XEA board

From: Lukasz Majewski <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2021 13:21:29 +0200

Hi Joakim,

> Hi Lukasz, Florian, Andrew,
> 
> > > Maybe somebody from NXP can provide input to this discussion - for
> > > example to sched some light on FEC driver (near) future.  
> > 
> > Seems like some folks at NXP are focusing on the STMMAC controller
> > these days (dwmac from Synopsys), so maybe they have given up on
> > having their own Ethernet MAC for lower end products.  
> 
> I am very happy to take participate into this topic, but now I have
> no experience to DSA and i.MX28 MAC, so I may need some time to
> increase these knowledge, limited insight could be put to now.

Ok. No problem :-)

> 
> Florian, Andrew could comment more and I also can learn from it :-),
> they are all very experienced expert.

The main purpose of several RFCs for the L2 switch drivers (for DSA [1]
and switchdev [2]) was to gain feedback from community as soon as
possible (despite that the driver lacks some features - like VLAN, FDB,
etc).

> 
> We also want to maintain FEC driver since many SoCs implemented this
> IP, and as I know we would also use it for future SoCs.
>   

Florian, Andrew, please correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression is
that upstreaming the support for L2 switch on iMX depends on FEC driver
being rewritten to support switchdev?

If yes, then unfortunately, I don't have time and resources to perform
that task - that is why I have asked if NXP has any plans to update the
FEC (fec_main.c) driver.

Joakim, do you have any plans to re-factor the legacy FEC driver
(fec_main.c) and introduce new one, which would support the switchdev?

If NXP is not planning to update the driver, then maybe it would be
worth to consider adding driver from [2] to mainline? Then I could
finish it and provide all required features.

Links:
[1] -
https://source.denx.de/linux/linux-imx28-l2switch/-/commits/imx28-v5.12-L2-upstream-DSA-RFC_v1
[2] -
https://source.denx.de/linux/linux-imx28-l2switch/-/commits/imx28-v5.12-L2-upstream-switchdev-RFC_v1

> Best Regards,
> Joakim Zhang

Best regards,

Lukasz Majewski

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