Teach an Old Network Driver New Tricks
summary
Ported legacy MAC and PHY code to phylib and mii_bus, registered mdio devices and replaced ad‑hoc link handling with the PHY framework, triggering six regressions that are now fixed. Wrote a new switch driver for the Atheros AR9331 and mainlined ag71xx into the kernel under DSA and iproute2 workflows. Enables ethtool cable testing, unified hardware counters, optional hardware timestamps and generic self-test support — old hardware now works with standard tooling.
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Intro
- 1:08Never touch a running system!
- 1:31HW capabilities and software support
- 3:06What functionality do I need? Diagnostic!
- 4:34Why PHY
- 5:20ASIX based example
- 7:52What is changed?
- 10:40Why switch?
- 11:08AR9331 switch case
- 14:47Can be done to many Ethernet drivers
- 16:52Lessons learned
- 18:21Motivation
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