quoted

- lan78xx_phy_init() (incl. the call to phy_connect_direct()) is called
  after register_netdev(). This may cause races.

That isn't a problem.  We have lots of network device drivers that do
this - in their open() function.

Hi Russell

Actually, here is it. lan7801_phy_init() finds the PHY device and
connects it to the MAC. lan78xx_open() calls phy_start(), with the
assumption lan7801_phy_init() has been called.

But the stack trace just provided shows this assumption is wrong. As
soon a register_netdev() is called, the kernel auto configuration is
kicking in and opening the device.

lan78xx_phy_init() needs to happen before register_netdev(), or inside
lan78xx_open().

	Andrew