I recently installed Arch 0.7 beta 1, and am having a problem with my ethernet chip. I have been using arch for a long time but I recently upgraded my motherboard to one that has onboard ethent courtesy of an onboard via-velocity vt6122 chip. I loaded the via-velocity module from the install cd and completed a successful ftp install, but when I rebooted the new system the via-velocity module was missing from /lib/modules/2.6.8.1/kernel/drivers/net. When I looked at the /usr/src/linux-2.6.8.1/.config file, I noticed that "via-velocity" is neither compiled into the kernel or as a module. I even tried to copy the module from the install cd to the module location, but when i tried insmod it told me that the module was in the wrong format. Why would this module be available for the install but not for the system? Maybe I can compile it myself?

If you have the means to get the kernel source sure you could compile it.
www.kernel.org. Get 2.6.8.1 and copy it to your /usr/src I think there are many different sources for show you how to compile your own kernel. I do the following:

cd /usr/src
tar jfx linux--verision
ln -sf linux--version linux
cd linux
make oldconfig
make menuconfig --> to select what you want installed.
make
make modules_install
cp System /boot/System--version
cp arch/i386/boot/bzimage /boot/vmlinuz---version

Then modify you lilo or grub config...

Walt

thank you for responding, I will give that a try. My only concern is that if I recompile a kernel from source, won't that mess up Arch's package and upgrade system for the kernel? I thought of making my own custom kernel package, but the deal is that I don't have internet access on that machine (obviously). I wonder if I can somehow build a package by transfering all the needed files to it with a usb key. Actually, I'll try that. But what I don't understand is why the developers at Arch left it out in the first place.

hmm, iseem to have answered my own question. When I compiled my own kernel with the proper drivers, I got an " unable to handle kernel null pointer dereference at virtual address......... segmentation fault". Looks like theres something wrong with the driver, but I guess that could be expected because via-velocity is listed as NeW in the menuconfig. I'll just wait for the next kernel version, thank you for your help.