Hi all,

I just installed Slackware 10, everything seems to be working great. However, I need to know where and when does slackware actually load the driver/module for the ethernet driver, because I need to pass some parameter to the module. You see, the cable run from my PC to the hub is a little bit long, so I need to force the card to run on 10 Mbps full duplex. If I let it to autonegotiate (the default when you load the driver), then the card would never be able to find the hub.
I know forcing it to 10 Mbps works because I do it in RedHat and I do it in win 98 in the same machine.
I look in the /etc/rc.d/rc.modules, but the line for my ethernet driver is commented there
# VIA Rhine support:
#/sbin/modprobe via-rhine

and no other modprobe for ethernet card is uncommented

The lsmod give me this:
So it is for sure that the via-rhine module that is being used.

The rc.modules also talking about rc.netdevice but I canot fid the file anywhere on my machine.

Anybody can help me ?

Thanks a milion in advance

Check if you have the file /etc/rc.d/rc.netdevice, or else

Hi bathory,

This is what I get when I do:
bash-2.05b$ grep via-rhine /etc/rc.d/*
/etc/rc.d/rc.modules:#/sbin/modprobe via-rhine

As I said my via-rhine is commented in the rc.modules and I don't have any rc.netdevice on my machine.

Thanks

Put the module on hotplug's blacklist /etc/hotplug/blacklist
and load it manually in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules passing the argument.

By the way, the modules that aren't loaded manually are loaded by hotplug.

Hi gbonvehi,

It works great ! Thanks a lot......

ahh.... good idea! thanks for the tip

Hi all again,

Sorry I have another question. What gbonvehi suggested works. I mean the hotplug startup on slackware does not load the via-rhine modules when it boot up. However, I also cannot make it load even when I put the alias of the module in /etc/modules.conf file.

Here is the content of my modules.conf:
Of course I can do a modprobe the via-rhine manually or uncomment the modprobe via-rhine on my rc.modules, however that doesn't help me on my need to load the driver with options (at least I don't know ho to pass arguments when loading the driver via modprobe, it is not that obvious on man modprobe)
The modules.conf is the only way I know works in RedHat, but why slackware doesn't load it while it loads the alsa and all other sound modules.

Any ideas ?

Thanks

Try: modprobe via-rhine full_duplex=1 options=0x20 debug=3
If I'm not wrong that should work, if it doesn't take a look in rc.modules that there are some commented modules where arguments are passed, so you can take a example from there.
Btw, on modprobe's man page it talks about module parameters

Your alias is incomplete in modules.conf, instead of just :
alias via-rhine
options via-rhine full_duplex=1 options=0x20 debug=3

it sould be:
alias eth0 via-rhine
options via-rhine full_duplex=1 options=0x20 debug=3

Sorry, my mistake it actually does talk about option in only one line..., but yes I think it works too...


Cedrik,

You are right, it works ! Thank you

Thanks everyone for all the help

Hi everyone,

I recently upgraded my mobo to an Abit NF7-S2, which has an onboard Via-Rhine chipset for the LAN connection......................I noticed that ifconfig was showing a lot of collisions for the interface and realized that I needed to force full-duplex in the 10baseT mode (0x20), since I'm sitting behind a homemade gateway/router box, running Slackware 9.1 with two 3COM Etherlink III isa NICs.........I had set the LAN card on the router to full-duplex, but these are ancient cards and are only rated at 10Mbit/s.........

Once I realized that, I added the options line in /etc/modules.conf to force the correct mode with only this single line:

options via-rhine options=0x20

I'm letting hotplug load the module itself...................This seems to be working as ifconfig is not reporting any more collisions for the interface.......

I noticed in your lines above, aherrys, you are using both the full_duplex=1 option as well as the options=0x20, when only one is really needed......The full_duplex=1 option will force full-duplex, but also allows for different speeds (10Mbit, 100Mbit), and the hex value forces a specific speed if working with a card on the other end that only works with one speed..........

I don't know if this makes any difference, but I thought I'd throw that little bit of tirvia in..........


Also, one more thing, did you remember to run the command 'depmod -ae' when you first made changes in /etc/modules.conf?.......

Well actually it doesn't work in my case...

But I think it has something to do with the via-rhine.o module itself that comes with the slackware package. You need to download the latest via-rhine.c form scyld site and compile it yourself, but I have not yet succeeded in doing that. (still got some error)

But do you know you can force the card to behave the way you want using mii-tool ?

Thanks for your suggestion though

Hmmm, I'm not using the stock Sllackware kernel..............I always rebuild the kernel first thing after upgrading to reduce the bloat and get rid of unneeded drivers.........Right now, I'm running the 2.4.27 kernel in Slack 10 (guess I need to update my profile in the left-hand column... ), and it seems to be doing just fine..........And I'm not using any updated driver from Scyld, either, although I have in past.....

Also, I've seen some passing reference to the mii-tool, but I've never bothered to check it out...............Sounds like a handy tool to have, thanx......