joukewitteveen/netcfg — comment on commit 10a01a13d3e849e576dadd5ca39be67c632f9f3a
File: scripts/wifi-menu line 203
By joukewitteveen:

operstate had "down" too, after `ip link set dev eth0 up`. The only difference was that some files (carrier, for one) are inaccessible if the interface is down according to `ip`.