Anyone able to get nvnet working (or anything else) in RH9 with the Nvidia2 chipset. I've tried everything I can and just seem to get deeper in the doo. I compiled with the tarballs from Nvidia's site with the 2.4.20-8 kernel and actually got the NIC recognized, but then initiation fails with DHCP. I know this network is up though, using it now w/ win98 + DHCP.

Recently I installed the new 2.3.20-20.9 kernel +source, did a make clean install with the Nvidia tarballs, but just more of the same junk, now with bonus audio probs with no extra charge! Even a diff PCI NIC failed to work w/ DHCP. Don't know what else can be done?

Does the nvnet module load?
I had a problem that the thing got compiled and worked right after that but for some reason it wasn't there anymore after a reboot.

I'll have to look again, think so. To make sure, I would look in the modules.config for the following line:

alias eth0 nvnet

Correct?

Also this "insmod" and "modprobe" stuff has me a little confused too. I read you're supposed to inclued that in the readme. However when I put "insmod eth0" into modules.config, I just get all sorts of additonal errors. Sorry if my questions sound dumb, but I'm pretty new to Linux.

If you do lsmod as root something like this should pop up

bash-2.05b# lsmod
Module Size Used by Tainted: P
snd-intel8x0 19364 0
snd-ac97-codec 41880 0 [snd-intel8x0]
snd-mpu401-uart 3776 0 [snd-intel8x0]
snd-rawmidi 15072 0 [snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-seq-device 4352 0 [snd-rawmidi]
snd-pcm-oss 39524 0
snd-pcm 64640 0 [snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm-oss]
snd-page-alloc 6612 0 [snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm]
snd-timer 15812 0 [snd-pcm]
snd-mixer-oss 13688 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd 32100 0 [snd-intel8x0 snd-ac97-codec snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device snd-pcm-oss snd-pcm snd-timer snd-mixer-oss]
soundcore 4164 4 [snd]
nvidia 1542336 10
nvnet 26464 1
bash-2.05b#

This is actually from a nforce2 chipset with the soundmodules for alsa loaded.
What you are looking for is 'nvnet'
modprobe loads a module as does insmod.Normally it should load with modprobe.

Well nvnet shows up. But I did notice on boot that I got an "unresolved symbols" or something of that nature for audio and nvnet.0 ugggh!

Try this:

# rmmod nvnet
# modprobe nvnet

Then reply back with the entire error message. That might help narrow it down.

I get something about "warning loading /lib/modules/,,,,/nvnet.0 will taint the kernel
See tux.org for info about tainted modules
Module nvnet loaded with warnings"

Sorry I can't cut and paste, no floppy.

I think I didn't update the kernel the best way possible. I just ran the rpm -i for the kerenel + source
Also noticed on Grub that the newest kernel isn't selected by default. But I did make and make install the nvidia drivers again.

I get the same message - got normally nothing to do with functionality but is merely a message that you kernel has loaded a non-GPL module.
If it shows up as loaded with lsmod the problem is probably somewhere with your dhcp configuration.

Thanks for letting me in on that info. How do you like debian by the way? I've heard it's supposed to be real stable and all.

I do like debian a lot.Much easier to handle and upgrade than rpm distros.But doing a network install with a nforce2 chipset is a pain.Only distro I know of where the network works out of the box is gentoo.

what dhcp client do you use? and does it give any errors?
Does it give any errors if you try to assign a static ip to the device?

BTW, debian is great distro. I dont like it for a desktop machines(not for any real reason just personal opinion) but its great for servers.

Im using ISC DHCP ver3.0 When I run dhclient thru the terminal it just goes through the intervals but doesn't come up with an IP. Also I tried putting a pri, sec on the DNS setting with no luck.

To give you more info on the system, all I've done is installed RH9, updated the kernels to latest and greatest from RH, and did a make clean, make, make install for the nvnet. Got my Grub fixed too. I haven't added anything to any config files or anything. Any other ideas/possibilities?

I'm about to d/l Gentoo!!!

try getting dhcpcd instead of dhclient. Ive had problems with dhclient but dhcpcd seems to work perfectly, every time, no matter what.

That's a diff prograg for the dhcp I guess. Where can you d/l it and do I need to do anything special so that it will run instead of dhclient?

Go for it if you are ok with a install without gui.
But you might into one or two completly new sets of problems there.
If you do it go to the gentoo forums and have a look of the topics of the last 24 hours to see if something like 'installer is broken' or so is mentioned there.