Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/4] atl1: Main C file for Attansic L1 driver

From: Jeff Garzik <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 14:35:10 -0500

Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> Using common MII code is good, but one problem with the existing MII code is that
> it doesn't work when device is down. This makes it impossible to set speed/duplex
> before device comes up.

That's not true at all.  drivers/net/mii.c uses caller-provided locking 
in all cases, and there is nothing that prevents the common code from 
being called when the interface is down.

You are probably thinking about all the netif_running() checks found in 
the drivers, particularly in the ->begin() hook.

	Jeff