Ethernet PHY drivers

[John Teller]

Hi,

I'm mucking about with Blackfin networking stuff and was able to get the 
Ethernet driver running on a BF527.  At this point it only talks to the 
PHY using the basic IEEE register set, which is OK for getting the board 
up and running.  Unfortunately, all the good stuff like interrupt 
generation on link changes etc. are in the extended vendor-specific area.

After looking around the 4.10 codebase, I see that every architecture 
has its own PHY drivers, which are pretty much tied into the 
architecture's built-in PHY, or a small subset of available parts.

I've also worked with uClinux on the Blackfin, where the PHY drivers are 
separate from the MAC.  It's a big and complicated system, very much 
overkill for what I believe RTEMS is aimed at, namely a small embedded 
system with a predefined hardware configuration.  Politics and licensing 
aside, there is still plenty in there to be learned from.

Are there any projects afoot to add a subset of this kind of 
functionality?  If not, I'm willing to give it a go.

---JST