> On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 06:22:29PM +0100, Martin Pieuchot wrote: > > The only difference I see is that the MAC address has to be read from > > the EEPROM. It's not clear to me if Linux does that for all models, > > hence my question. > > As the comment in the code where this mountroot hook is installed implies, > the only reason it loads firmware at boot is that it wants to show you > the device model, firmware version, and MAC address in dmesg. > > The MAC address cannot be read before firmware is loaded. > All other drivers have a way to read the MAC address without > loading firmware, but not this one.
Not true. There are others: bge (some models) bnx qle The network drivers hook based upon the root filesystem coming ready. The approach they take is generally disliked. However, doing it at ifconfig time is also disliked for other reasons.
