In message 10d674cb0712180111n6199b235i9611fc97dda26697@mail.gmail.com you wrote:
We're using an MPC5200 with U-Boot 1.1.5. If I set the environment variable skipnetcheck=y the ethernet check is skipped until it is needed, for instance when using tftp. The code is in lib_ppc/board.c.
This is obviously a local hack in you version of the code.
If it is available in your code you could try if it suits your need.
No, suich an approach doesn't make sense. If the code gets changed, then please not with such a quick and dirty hack but with a real fix / cleanup.
One thing to have in mind though is that after Linux is up and running you have to initialize the hardware. I think a ping from your board to an external ip-address is ok. Someone maybe have a better idea how to do this?
Oops. What do you mean? Linux has always to initialize the hardware. No suich thing as a "ping" is needed to do that.
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk