A whole host of new errors, but it still didn't work. Let's see:

incompatible pointer type
unknown field specified in initializer
'ethtool...' undeclared here (not in a function)
In function 'e100_probe'
implicit declaration of function
macro "INIT_WORK" passed 3 arguments, but takes just 2
make[2]: *** [.../src/e100.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/.../src] Error 2
make: *** [default] Error 2

That's just an edited sample. There were a couple of pages worth.


I'm beginning to think that this hardware just isn't going to work on Server 9.04.

Unfortunately, it may be just that the driver was engineered to work on a narrow range of specific kernel releases, and has gone unmaintained for quite some time, and it just simply won't work on newer/other kernels.

As I mentioned way up in this thread, I have had similar experiences with Intel drivers. Fortunately for me, I only need ONE Intel driver, and an independant programmer has been doing a good job of keeping it up to date, albeit with long delays between releases.

Have you got your kernel sources, headers, etc. all installed on the system (like kernel-devel package and all that)?

Sorry, I don't know what else to suggest, other than maybe contacting Intel and see if they have anything to contribute to the situation.

Sasha

Sources and headers are installed, and in every other respect it works just fine. For whatever reason (okay, it was probably money), it just hasn't been worth it for Intel to make a compatible driver and keep it up to date. Too bad, since it's a nice little machine.

Thanks for all your help. It's been a learning experience, and that always counts for something.

One last thought, having had an extra look at the entire thread:

You're trying to build the e100 driver, which to me means you have an Intel e100 type of interface on this machine.
Therefore, why wouldn't the e100 in-kernel driver work? Have you tried it? Or is this a different interface..?

Sasha

A very logical thought, but the in-kernel didn't work from the beginning which is why I went hunting for a driver specifically designed for this hardware.

There are no PCI slots (or I'd just plug in a 3Com card), although there is a PCMCIA slot. I tried a couple of ancient cards I had on hand, but they weren't any good either. That didn't surprise me, but the lack of support for an Intel Pro/100 VE did.

I've loaded this machine 3 or 4 times, but I'm going to give it one more shot on Monday. I'll get a fresh download/disk and try, try again.

Reloaded the OS, but again no driver for the NIC. I'll try rebuilding the driver again in the next day or two.

I wiped the machine and tried everything from scratch again. Same problems, same errors.

I give up. It's such a waste of good hardware though.


Thank you, Sasha, for all your help.