What are phy drivers?

I noticed recently in dmesg that a driver was registering something called 'phy0', and this seems to have something to do with ethernet.

So, when I compiled the 2.6.25.11 kernel, I enabled "PHY device support and infrastructure" as a module. This was in the "Network device support" section.

This has resulted in some more modules, but they don't have any modalias entries so I don't know what would cause them to load, if anything.

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Comments

Phy Devices
Username: dogone
Does this help? http://www.ecos.sourceware.org/docs-latest/ref/io-eth-phy-generic1.html

Phy Devices
Username: dogone
"...and this from Wikipedia PHY (often pronounced /ˈfaɪ/ "fye") is a common abbreviation for the physical layer of the OSI model. A PHY connects a link layer device (often called a MAC) to a physical medium such as an optical fibre or copper cable. A PHY typically includes a PCS (Physical Coding Sublayer) and a PMD (Physical Medium Dependent) layer. The PCS encodes and decodes the data that is transmitted and received. The purpose of the encoding is to make it easier for the receiver to recover the signal.

PHY
Username: Flapdoodle
"Does this help? http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/networking/phy.txt

devx problems
Username: Inuyasha
"I'm having some serious problems with the devx_400.sfs package. I'm not sure what they are, but you might be interested. I thought about waiting, but I figured I would tell you right away, since the devx file is an important part of the OS. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=218184

Tags: puppy