SuSe 7.0 can't detect Neatgear ethernet nic

[littlejohnny]

I am trying to configure my pc for lan connectivity using a Netgear ethernet 10/100
nic. The bios knows about it and it shows up on bootup but linux can't find it on boot
up and yast can't find it either.

Any ideas?

Thank you!.

 

[goBoating]

Sorry littlejohnny, this is not an answer, rather it is an extension to the question.

This may or may not need to be a new thread. If the SuSe and RH approaches are significantly different, I'll start another. Also, I am new at this, so if anyone knows of some good reading material on the subject, that would be appreciated.

I am also wrestling with a Netgear nic (FA311) but with RH 7.0, kernel 2.2.16-22. Netgear says it is compatible and it came with a RH7 driver (fa311.o).

I don't think I see the big picture yet.
This is my possibly incorrect approach.
1 - load the driver
2 - configure eth0
3 - setup DHCP to use with my ADSL

I can't figure out how to load the driver.
The card came with a fa311.o file indicated for use with RH 7.
I copied that file into /lib/modules/2.2.16-22/net/.
(Seems like the correct place, ... there are others there, including tulip.o).
I modified /etc/modules.conf to include,
alias eth0 fa311

I rebooted.
When booting, a message goes by that says something like..."Finding module dependencies....Failed (something about symbols...blah blah blah)...."

It goes by to fast to read and dmesg does not show the entire complaint.

A short discussion of the general flow for setting these things up might be helpful, (along with any specifics).

Thanks for any input in advance.




keep the rudder amid ship and beware the odd typo

 

[ifincham]

Hi,









As far as I know, that driver is not in the 2.2 series kernels but is in the 2.4 series.









In principle you should be able to :









cp fa311.o /lib/modules/2.2.x/net/









edit /etc/modules.conf to all the line




alias eth0 fa311 (i.e., as shown in last posting above)




depmod -ae (updates module dependencies)









Then use 'netconf' (easiest for redhat) or yast2 / yast (Suse) to configure the 'eth0' interface with correct ip settings.









In theory eth0 should then be activated each reboot...









If that doesn't work, there is a version of the natsemi driver (as used by FA311) included in the 2.4 kernel source. In order to simplify the dependency issues why not just make the move to 2.4 and compile a new kernel. In fact, you may find that installing a pre-compiled 2.4 series kernel suits your need and, most probably, that would install a natsemi driver for you. You'd find it here :









/lib/modules/2.4.7/kernel/drivers/net/natsemi.o









(where 2.4.7 was your kernel version).









From there it should work with the insmod/modprobe commands or by specifying 'alias eth0 natsemi' in your /etc/modules.conf.









See also

http://www.scyld.com/network/ethercard.html

Hope this is of some help




Rgds

 

[littlejohnny]

Thank you gentlemen for your help---I will try what was suggested. I think I am going
to upgrade to 7.2 anyway.

 

[goBoating]

Thanks ifincham,
I think your suggestion to move to the current kernel is a good idea.
I'm off to try it.




keep the rudder amid ship and beware the odd typo

 

[goBoating]

after reading about upgrading the kernel, I chickened out. If I can't get a silly PCI card driver to install, maybe a new kernel is a little ambitious.

So, I went back to the driver situation for my current kernel. I checked back at

http://www.netgear.com

and found a driver that was more recent than the one distributed one week ago with the card.
- copied it to /lib/modules/2.2.16-22/net/.
- added 'alias eth0 fa311' to /etc/modules.conf
- rebooted and saw no errors - yeah
- lsmod showed the module loaded but not used
- ifconfig -a showed eth0 to be down
- ifconfig eth0 up
- netconfig - selected DHCP for my ADSL

Everything works.

Now, let's reboot and see if it sticks...

Thanks to ifincham for the advice.


keep the rudder amid ship and beware the odd typo

 

[StarTAC]

u might wanna try running yast2 next time.. it usually does the detection for all hardware.. and has most of the well-known drivers.. haven't tried the Netgear yet though..

good luck..