Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] mvneta: use inband status only when link type is "auto"

From: Florian Fainelli <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2015 14:14:11 -0700

On 09/07/15 13:26, Stas Sergeev wrote:
> 09.07.2015 21:18, Florian Fainelli пишет:
>> On 09/07/15 10:41, Stas Sergeev wrote:
>>> The commit 898b2970e2c9 ("mvneta: implement SGMII-based in-band link
>>> state
>>> signaling") implemented the link parameters auto-negotiation
>>> unconditionally.
>>> Unfortunately it appears that some HW that implements SGMII protocol,
>>> doesn't generate the inband status, so it is not possible to
>>> auto-negotiate
>>> anything with such HW.
>> What is the purpose of using the in-band status in the first place if
>> you end-up having to specify a 'fixed-link' property which contains most
>> of the link parameters: speed, duplex etc...?
> You don't have to.
> My config from today is as simple as:
> 
> fixed-link {
>   link = "auto";
> };
> 
> and that's all.
> Without my today's patch, only 'speed' is a mandatory - not too much.

That makes me think that 'fixed-link' is not exactly what you want then,
you would probably want something like "marvell,use-in-band-status" or
something like this. It could be a more generic property that is not
Marvell specific after all, that would be fine.
-- 
Florian