Re: [PATCH net-next 0/3] net: survive a PHY whose driver arrives after the switch probes
From: Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch>
Date: 2026-08-28 13:30:34
Two questions before I send the series. My MCU driver only waits for the firmware files and registers the nested bus; the download stays in the PHY driver, which already does it. Moving it into the MDIO driver duplicates the loader for a quad-PHY case no board has yet. Is the MCU-side download a hard part of the design for you?
I think logically it belongs in the MDIO device. But we have to keep backwards compatibility. I would refactor it out into a helper, which both the PHY driver and the MDIO driver can use. At the same time, i think you need to extend it to check if firmware is already running on the MCU, and is so, don't do the download.
On this board the minimal variant, slow-to-probe alone with the PHY node directly on the bus, carries everything by itself: the chip answers its ID from the bootloader, and the driver and firmware arrive together. The MDIO-device layer buys the general case (chips silent before firmware, quad PHY, reset ownership). Both layers in one series, or slow-to-probe first?
So long as you have not hit the limit of patches in a patch set, i
would keep it as a single patchset.
Andrew