There is an interesting thread about initializing the mac adress:
http://lists.arm.linux.org.uk/pipermail/linux-arm-kernel/2004-April/021126.h tml
-------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Kögler EL-ME AG Gewerbering 1 D-84072 Au i. d. Hallertau
Tel.: +49 / 8752 / 864 - 527 Fax.: +49 / 8752 / 864 - 100 mailto.: p.koegler@el-me.de Web: www.el-me.de
-----Original Message----- From: Wolfgang Denk [mailto:wd@denx.de] Sent: Monday, July 05, 2004 7:47 PM To: Kögler Peter Cc: u-boot-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [U-Boot-Users] Ethernet does not work on at91rm9200
In message 367ED8C46538D7119DAC000A0D106744520D54@elmegmbh.elmedmn.com you wrote:
but if i boot from filesystem (jffs2) than linux doesnt know the
mac-adress.
if i stop at u-boot prompt, call any network function, and start linux afterwords, then linux knows the mac-adress.
This is a problem with your LInux driver which does not perform all the required initialization.
This tends to become a FAQ.
does u-boot only initialize the ethernet interface if it is needed? can i
Yes.
force u-boot to init the ethernet interface or is there another 'standard' way to tell linux the mac-adress?
U-Boot should NOT touch any hardware it does not access itself. If you don't use the ethernet interface in U-Boot it shall NOT be initialized by U-Boot.
The standard way is that the Linux driver is responsible to perform all required initialization. The method to pass information from the boot loader to the Linux kernel is architecture dependent; it may use a bd_info structure (like on PPC), or ATAGs (like on ARM) or command line arguments, or a combination of these.
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk