DHCP fails for Cent OS but not Vista Pro
 

I created a partition for Cent OS 5.3 and installed it just fine. My Vista boot from grub has no problems using the network card and gets all the DHCP info it needs from my home router. When I boot Linux, it gives me a fail message during boot and I can't use the network card. I've also tried editing the /etc/sysconfig/network and /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 files to specify all the information that I get when I'm in Vista.
network:
NETWORKING=yes
NETWORKING_IPV6=yes
GATEWAY=<ipaddr>
HOSTNAME=chuckd

ifcfg-eth0:
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=none
IPADDR=<ipaddr>
GATEWAY=<same as above>
NETMASK=<mask>
DNS1=<same as gateway>
HWADDR=<filled in by installer>
IPV6INIT=yes
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet

When using DHCP, I lose most of that stuff (gateway, ipaddr, netmask, dns1) and set bootproto to dhcp. Neither way works. With dhcp, I get the fail during boot. With explicit settings, it doesn't fail, but it can't ping anything or see anything on my network or elsewhere.

Is it possible that the router is confused? Am I missing something in my install? It asked if I wanted to enable Ethernet(?), IPV4, and IPV6 as separate items and I selected all 3, should I have left it as the default with only the first one and not the v4 and v6 services?

This is a new Gateway DX4200 with a Marvell PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet controller.

You shouldn't really have to edit files like that. Unfortunately, editing it may have caused some of the problems.

Are you sure that CentOS is seeing the PCI-E device at all? After bootup, from a command prompt, do a lspci for devices and then do a lsmod for drivers. See if you can recognize a driver that represents the Marvell device. You may want to post output here.

It is possible that your router is being a little fussy seeing MAC address with one host name under Vista, and then the same MAC address under Linux. Check the logs for error messages like "device with MAC xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx is requesting IP address but is already on the network" or something like that. It's possible you've enabled some form of DHCP reservation for that device in the router.

Does your computer have a built-in ethernet (is the Marvell card an add-on)? It's possible you're putting all this effort into "eth0" when you may want to be working with "eth1" or some other device name. Do an ifconfig and see what's listed as output.

Finally, try a dhclient -q ethX where X is the appropriate device number and see what's reported when you try that.

The relevant output from lspci:
02.00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8071 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 16)

The card is the built in card. I only started to hand-edit the files when it wasn't working with the way the installation set them up. I tried installing multiple times (each time as a fresh install) with and without dhcp.

I went to the Marvell web site, input the driver id, and downloaded the installation package it provided (it says for all kernels 2.4.x and higher). When it installed, I chose to disable the previous driver (the one not certified by Marvell). There were no errors or warnings during the installation.

I'm not sure what's relevant in lsmod, but sk98lin shows up and that's what the Marvell web site provides as a download. The order changed from this when I rebooted after installing, but the list remained about the same other than the order. The sk98lin doesn't ever show up in the Used by column, as seen here:
Module Size Used by
sk98lin 209340 0
vfat 46401 1
fat 85873 1 vfat
netloop 40129 0
netbk 130305 0 [permanent]
blktap 151653 2 [permanent]
blkbk 54777 0 [permanent]
ipt_MASQUERADE 36801 1
iptable_nat 40773 1
ip_nat 52973 2 ipt_MASQUERADE,iptable_nat
bridge 91761 0
autofs4 57033 2
hidp 83521 2
rfcomm 104809 0
l2cap 89281 10 hidp,rfcomm
bluetooth 118597 5 hidp,rfcomm,l2cap
sunrpc 197513 1
ip_conntrack_netbios_ns 36033 0
ipt_REJECT 38849 3
xt_state 35265 3
ip_conntrack 91109 5 ipt_MASQUERADE,iptable_nat,ip_nat,ip_conntrack_netbios_ns,xt_state
nfnetlink 40457 2 ip_nat,ip_conntrack
iptable_filter 36161 1
ip_tables 55329 2 iptable_nat,iptable_filter
ip6t_REJECT 38849 1
xt_tcpudp 36289 14
ip6table_filter 36033 1
ip6_tables 50049 1 ip6table_filter
x_tables 50377 8 ipt_MASQUERADE,iptable_nat,ipt_REJECT,xt_state,ip_tables,ip6t_REJECT,xt_tcpudp,ip6_tables
ipv6 424737 21 ip6t_REJECT
xfrm_nalgo 43333 1 ipv6
crypto_api 42945 1 xfrm_nalgo
cpufreq_ondemand 42577 4
powernow_k8 58201 1
freq_table 40889 2 cpufreq_ondemand,powernow_k8
dm_multipath 55385 0
scsi_dh 41665 1 dm_multipath
video 53197 0
hwmon 36553 0
backlight 39873 1 video
sbs 49921 0
i2c_ec 38593 1 sbs
button 40545 0
battery 43849 0
asus_acpi 50917 0
ac 38729 0
lp 47121 0
snd_hda_intel 481649 0
snd_seq_dummy 37061 0
snd_seq_oss 65473 0
snd_seq_midi_event 41025 1 snd_seq_oss
sr_mod 50789 0
snd_seq 87905 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
cdrom 68713 1 sr_mod
snd_seq_device 41557 3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 77505 0
snd_mixer_oss 49985 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 116809 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
i2c_piix4 42573 0
shpchp 70509 0
snd_timer 57289 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 44113 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
snd_hwdep 43593 1 snd_hda_intel
i2c_core 56129 2 i2c_ec,i2c_piix4
snd 99560 9 snd_hda_intel,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_hwd ep
soundcore 41825 1 snd
parport_pc 62313 0
parport 73293 2 lp,parport_pc
pcspkr 36289 0
sg 69865 0
serial_core 56385 0
serio_raw 40517 0
dm_raid45 98897 0
dm_message 36161 1 dm_raid45
dm_region_hash 46273 1 dm_raid45
dm_mem_cache 39489 1 dm_raid45
dm_snapshot 51593 0
dm_zero 35265 0
dm_mirror 53319 0
dm_log 44865 3 dm_raid45,dm_region_hash,dm_mirror
dm_mod 100497 11 dm_multipath,dm_raid45,dm_snapshot,dm_zero,dm_mirror,dm_log
usb_storage 116257 1
ahci 68681 2
libata 208593 1 ahci
sd_mod 56385 5
scsi_mod 196825 6 scsi_dh,sr_mod,sg,usb_storage,libata,sd_mod
ext3 167761 2
jbd 94129 1 ext3
uhci_hcd 57561 0
ohci_hcd 56053 0
ehci_hcd 65869 0

I checked all of the router settings, changed the Linux host name to exactly match the Vista host name, and reset the router so the Vista boot didn't show up in the client list anymore. Still nothing. I don't think it's the router.

I really appreciate the help.

dhclient -q eth0
gave no output at all.

I tried using the network configuration tool and it kept insisting that I use sky2. Somehow, when I tried re-installing the sk98lin from the card provider, I broke the kernel. I decided to try ubuntu instead and it got the network card working immediately.