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Slack Noob 10-21-2006 09:36 AM

New to Slackware/Problem with onboard ethernet card
Hello all! Installed a Linux based OS for the first time yesterday. Somehow managed to get myself all the way up to the Xorg GUI without messing things up. First thing I thought I'd do was to set up the network and connect to the internet...take it from there.

Being a complete newb, the first thing I looked for was the Network Connection configuration in the Settings or sometihng. Not finding anything, I reverted to my good pal, Google for help. Hence I'm here. I've went through more then a dozen topics about ethernet and Slackware, and it mostly covered the same turf (how to set up all the IP's properly). I've done that upon installation, and cross checked it afterwards. It's set properly.

When I check ifconfig it only displays the "lo" information, and the eth0 (or any other number for that matter) shows up as device not found.
I have the 8N Neo4-F motherboard with Marvell 88E1111 PHY LAN adapter on it. I hope this information helps you to help me, hehe

I am connecting through a US Robotics router to a Cable modem (and onto the internet ofcourse).


snowtigger 10-21-2006 11:05 AM

You will need to load them module for it (the driver in the windows world).

If you are using the 2.6 kernel don't forget to install the module package for it.

I'm not sure which module you need to get it working. But i'm sure someone here knows which one it is.

Once the module is in place you should then be able to use the card. To start the network, as root do rc.inet1 eth0 start This will then bring up the card if you used the slackware installer to configure it. It will then show up in ifconfig. You can also use ifconfig to manually configure the card.


Slack Noob 10-21-2006 03:48 PM

Hey, thanks for the reply! I am not entirely sure which Kernel I am using, so I'd appreciate info on how to check. Wouldn't wanna be blurping some sill version number of who-knows-what, eh? :) Though, I think it's 2.4.something. On the other hand, I do remember configuring ALSA, and that's mentioned as the feature of the 2.6 kernel.

Either way, you mentioned "installing" some modules, so can you please elaborate on that. Where can I get the modules from? Can I search for them somewhere? I think I can manage installing them without making a mess.....but hey as Einstein said, two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity! ;)


snowtigger 10-22-2006 08:49 PM

You can find out which kernel you are using with uname. At a terminal type uname -a It will tell some stuff about your kernel.

Modules are a part of the kernel. I general when you compile a kernel, you will either compile it with something built in or as a module. The standard kernel has support of lots of hardware. But to make it small in size (ie to be able to fit it on a floppy disk) and for some stability issues most things are made as modules with only the essential stuff compiled in. So when you need to use a certain bit of hardware you have to load the module. One of the tools for this is modprobe.

After a quick search on the LQ HCL I found this . I know it is not exactly your motherboard but it has the same ethernet adaptor on it. And it tells you which module it uses, which it forcedeth.

So to try and see if this works do the following.

Close any programs that you have running and exit X. This is just in case something horrible goes wrong.

Now hope fully you are at the cli. And you should be logged in as root.

Now run the following,

modprobe forcedeth
(This will load the module)

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 eth0 start
(this will rerun the rc.inet1 script, but only asking it to start eth0)

With a bit of luck you should now have eth0 up and running. To check this run ifconfig.

You may notice however that when you reboot the module won't automatically reload. To make it do this you need to edit rc.modules, this is located in /etc/rc.d. This is one of the scripts that are called on start up. If you read through it it will help you understand how linux works.

Now to make this module load at boot time you need to add the line,

/sbin/modprobe forcedeth

However you can not just add it at the beginning. In shell scripts the first line must be #!/bin/sh
Next there is some comments. these are the bits with a # at the start of the line. If you continue look down you will come to,
### Update module dependencies ###
Continue down , the last two lines of this section are,
/sbin/depmod -A

You can now add the line to load your module. But you should note that the order which the modules are list is the order they get loaded. So you add any more in here remember that if a module is loaded and it depends on one that is further down the list things may not work correctly.


Slack Noob 10-23-2006 02:07 AM

Thanks for the info, I tried adding /sbin/modprobe forcedeth in the rc.modules file, and rebooted. Upon startup, it spit up some error that was very quickly overtaken by other stuff loading up so I didn't manage to read it in full. I will try the "manual" add as you also mentioned, and see if it works or at least gives me the understanding of what it going on. :scratch:

Just remembered, after the first time forcedeth module reported an error, I actually downloaded (with my windoze PC) some other forcedeth thing, and put it in place of the old module that came with the Kernel, which is 2.4.26 I believe. Now as you're reading this, you're probably already saying "you shouldn't have done that" ... and I also realized that myself. The downloaded one is "compliled for a different version of Kernel" and it displays in the error report somewhere along the way.

Is there any simple and effective way I could revert back to the one that came with the Kernel? I forgot to make a backup....:D

