Subject: Re: [EXT] Re: [PATCH] net: stmmac: dwmac-imx: pause the TXC clock in fixed-link

From: "Russell King (Oracle)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2023 16:29:25 +0100

On Wed, Jul 26, 2023 at 03:10:19PM +0000, Shenwei Wang wrote:
> > if (of_phy_is_fixed_link(dwmac->dev->of_node)) {
> > 
> 
> This does not help in this case. What I need to determine is if the PHY currently in use is a fixed-link.
> The dwmac DTS node may have multiple PHY nodes defined, including both fixed-link and real PHYs.

... and this makes me wonder what DT node structure you think would
describe a fixed-link.

A valid ethernet device node would be:

	dwmac-node {
		phy-handle = <&phy1>;
	};

In this case:
	dwmac->dev->of_node points at "dwmac-node"
	plat->phylink_node points at "dwmac-node"
	plat->phy_node points at "phy1"
	Your "dn" is NULL.
	Therefore, your imx_dwmac_is_fixed_link() returns false.

	dwmac-node {
		fixed-link {
			speed = <...>;
			full-duplex;
		};
	};

In this case:
	dwmac->dev->of_node points at "dwmac-node"
	plat->phylink_node points at "dwmac-node"
	plat->phy_node is NULL
	Your "dn" points at the "fixed-link" node.
	Therefore, your imx_dwmac_is_fixed_link() also returns false.

Now, as far as your comment "What I need to determine is if the PHY
currently in use is a fixed-link." I'm just going "Eh? What?" at that,
because it makes zero sense to me.

stmmac uses phylink. phylink doesn't use a PHY for fixed-links, unlike
the old phylib-based fixed-link implementation that software-emulated
a clause-22 PHY. With phylink, when fixed-link is specified, there is
_no_ PHY.

There is no need to do any of this poking about to determine if the
link that is being brought up is a fixed-link or not, because phylink's
callbacks into the MAC driver already contain this information in the
"mode" argument. However, that is not passed to the driver's internal
priv->plat->fix_mac_speed() method - but this is the information you
need.

There is no need to write code to try and second-guess this, phylink
tells drivers what mode it is operating under.

stmmac really needs to be cleaned up - and really doesn't need more
complexity when the information is already being provided to the
driver.

-- 
RMK's Patch system: https://www.armlinux.org.uk/developer/patches/
FTTP is here! 80Mbps down 10Mbps up. Decent connectivity at last!