On Sep 19, John Nemeth wrote
>      No.  One physical device -> one line in the config file.  Having
> to put three lines in the config file for one physical board with a
> single function is gross and absolutely rediculous.

Hum, physical devices != physical board. You can now even have
100btx/100vg-anylan devices on the same board. This is done by using
the same controller, but different PHYs interfaces.

> Not to mentions
> error prone.  We just went through this with the Hayes ESP.

I didn't follow this very closely, but I think this is not the same
case: Hayes ESP is really a com device. There is not 2 different chips. On
this kind of ethernet board, controller != physical link controller.

> I believe
> the final decision is that there should be only one line.  An MII may
> act like a bus at the programming level, but it is not a physical bus
> (i.e. you can't attach multiple devices to it or change the device
> that is attached to it).

You CAN attach multiple devices to a MII bus (up to 32). And the ethernet board
I'm working on has 2 PHYs: one for the 10b2 port, and one for the 10/100 rj45
port. Not to mention boards that can do ethernet/100vg anylan.

For now you can't change the PHY of you ethernet board, but this is not
techincally prohibited.

--
Manuel Bouyer, LIP6, Universite Paris VI.
email: bouyer@rp.lip6.fr
       bouyer@ensta.fr
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