Subject: use a special value of -2 for virtual devices to report indeterminate speed?

From: Rick Jones <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2011 10:58:59 -0800

On 11/18/2011 10:46 AM, Jeremy Fitzhardinge wrote:
> On 11/18/2011 10:44 AM, Rick Jones wrote:
>>   It could I suppose, decide
>> based on the physical NIC to which it is attached, so long as folks
>> using the virtual NIC don't expect its attributes to be the same from
>> system to system.
>
> And assuming there's a physical NIC at all.

It sounds like we need a way to specify "Indeterminate" for link speed? 
  Or some verbiage to that effect. Right now 0 and -1 cause ethtool to 
report "Unknown!"

         if (speed == 0 || speed == (u16)(-1) || speed == (u32)(-1))
                 fprintf(stdout, "Unknown!\n");
         else
                 fprintf(stdout, "%uMb/s\n", speed);

How about -2 for the u32 cast value of speed returning "Indeterminate" 
or something like that?  Not in "proper" patch format:

	if (speed == 0 || speed == (u16)(-1) || speed == (u32)(-1))
		fprintf(stdout, "Unknown!\n");
	else if (speed == (u32)(-2))
		fprintf(stdout, "Indeterminate.");
	else
		fprintf(stdout, "%uMb/s\n", speed);

Signed-off-by: Rick Jones <[email-masked]>	

rick jones