From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1750850AbVIFUDS (ORCPT ); Tue, 6 Sep 2005 16:03:18 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1750852AbVIFUDR (ORCPT ); Tue, 6 Sep 2005 16:03:17 -0400 Received: from turing-police.cc.vt.edu ([128.173.14.107]:52915 "EHLO turing-police.cc.vt.edu") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750849AbVIFUDR (ORCPT ); Tue, 6 Sep 2005 16:03:17 -0400 Message-Id: <200509062002.j86K28R8019604@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.7.2 01/07/2005 with nmh-1.1-RC3 To: Francois Romieu Cc: Miroslaw Mieszczak , jgarzik@pobox.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Patch for link detection for R8169 In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 06 Sep 2005 21:46:02 +0200." <20050906194602.GA20862@electric-eye.fr.zoreil.com> From: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu References: <431DA887.2010008@zabrze.zigzag.pl> <20050906194602.GA20862@electric-eye.fr.zoreil.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="==_Exmh_1126036928_2971P"; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2005 16:02:08 -0400 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org --==_Exmh_1126036928_2971P Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Tue, 06 Sep 2005 21:46:02 +0200, Francois Romieu said: > Miroslaw Mieszczak : > > There is a patch to driver of RLT8169 network card. This match make > > possible detection of the link status even if network interface is down. > > This is usefull for laptop users. > > (side note: there is maintainer entry for the r8169 and network related > patches are welcome on netdev@vger.kernel.org) > > Can you elaborate why it is usefull for laptop users ? Desktops and rack mounts you tend to leave that RJ45 plugged into the back all the time. As a result, "no link" is a rare error condition. On the other hand, laptops are often sitting around with no RJ45 in sight. Being able to detect "card present but no cable plugged in" can be useful in startup scripts and the like, so you can do something like if [ link-is-up eth3 ]; then ifup eth3; fi and avoid throwing nasty error messages (and even worse, timeouts) trying to bring up the card if there's nothing plugged in. There's no sense in trying to do the whole DHCP thing (or whatever you need to do) if you can tell beforehand that it will fail.... --==_Exmh_1126036928_2971P Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Exmh version 2.5 07/13/2001 iD8DBQFDHfXAcC3lWbTT17ARAiwDAJ4rcTDvCzMIT943P6CyBabKYmokLwCfeCQF WsJqNjZfn3imfDeFlao99tQ= =6ZHH -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --==_Exmh_1126036928_2971P--