Just updated the DreamPlug to kernel 3.12, and – as predicted by Adam Baxter in a recent comment – the ‘mdio/ethernet’ patch was not included..

Details of the patch are in an earlier article:  http://rglinuxtech.com/?p=897

With the patch, everything seems to be OK..    I still get occasional ‘hangs’ when running yum/rpm, but that has been a problem unique to the DreamPlug ever since I first got it!

Robert Gadsdon… November 4, 2013.