In message 4795D957.1070305@schweigstill.de you wrote:
fw_getenv works fine for userspace programs. But I find it quite usefull to forward U-Boot configuration parameters to Linux kernel space via ATAGs, especially regarding different hardware versions and vice versa. Accessing the data which has been provided by ATAGs can be very fast because the ATAG data can be copied to global structures which can be accessed by the kernel and also be kernel modules. Typical applications are information about slightly different hardware versions, like GPIO mapping or polarity.
I agree that this may make sense on ARM systems - to me it would also make sense to pass the MAC address as an ATAG. The problem is that you will probably run into problems if youy try pushing such code into the mainline kernel. RMK will likely block it.
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk