On Fri, 31 Mar 2000, David S. Miller wrote:
> How do you specify "advertise 10baseT (half and full duplex), and
> 100baseTx (half duplex)".
>
> It currently allows you to force a specific setting (I originally
> created the tool so that users could easily work around switches with
> broken 100baseT advertisement), not specify an advertisement matrix.
Being able to both force the media type as well as set the advertised
capabilities is important. Note that the advertised capabilities includes
non-media-type features such as flow control.
> Adding that capability is simple, just add a "advertise" u32 to the
> ethtool_cmd structure, define a set of ADVERTISE_* bits (they can be
> the same bits as the SUPPORTED_* ones) and then one can just say:
That you can add code to add functionality is no surprise..
> Compare this with "MII write this funny value", "MII read this other
> funny value", "if funny bit constant foo is set, then MII write this
> other funny value". Yes, those values are specified in a standard,
To be precise
IEEE Std 802.3U, 1995, IEEE Standards for Local and Metropolitan Area
Networks: Media Access Control (MAC)
It's merely a existing, widely-used standard that has much though put into
it, a carefully worded description, and dozens (or hundreds) of
implementations. I can list a few areas for improvements, but I certain
couldn't have come with something as good starting from scratch.
> and can be macro'ized cleanly, but the above is much cleaner and
> doesn't make it an "MII/ethernet/whatever specific" solution by
> design, which is important.
Yes, it's cleaner, but because it misses some of the important features that
the MII standard covers.
No interface is going to cover all media types. But one named "ethtool"
isn't off to a good start for covering e.g. ATM. The MII-MDI standard was
flexible enough to support 1Mbps PNA transceivers without a change.
Donald Becker
Scyld Computing Corporation, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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