System determining which hardware interfaces eth0, eth1 by itself; how to change?

HowDoIProgramIt · 06-07-2007, 02:19 AM

I've been running Etch for close to a week now on a mac mini (ppc, G4, 1Gb RAM) after having finally - at least, for the time being - cut the cord with RedHat after many, many, many years...

Please note: this is a kind of duplicate of an earlier post of mine; apparently the title of that post was too misleading / off-putting, as I got no responses; so, I'm rewording this and trying again. Sorry for the quasi-duplicate posts.

I've been able to find where most everything I need to configure on my Etch system is and how to do it but there are a few things that escape me.

At boot, a 1394 OHCI is detected; no problem there. The problem is that the OS *always* loads ip1394 and eth1394 upon finding the thing, and, as a result, eth0 is assigned to the 1394, and not the 10base-T Sun GEM card that's built in to the mini.

I've looked high and low for where and how to change this; I've added a modprobe.conf -> nothing. I read & used the documentation in /usr/share/doc/ifupdown/examples/network-interfaces.gz -> still nothing. Both together -> nothing. The long and short of it, is that I think I've figured out how to configure most things inside of Debian, but can't for the world of me figure out where the two modules mentioned earlier are being loaded. The last guess I had was that this was something buried somewhere pretty deeply in /etc/udev/.

I plan to use the 1394 interface, but not for networking. How do I make the 10base-T interface eth0 and the other eth1?

Also, to use the 1394 for an external hard drive, do I have to blacklist or otherwise disable ip1394 && eth1394 or can the two coexist?

Like I said, after 8-some years, I'm switching from RedHat / Fedora to Debian. If anyone can fill me in on where things such as the equivalents of ntsysv && chkconfig are and how the whole Debian boot process works I would really, really, really appreciate it.

Also, once X starts, none of my virtual consoles are acessible anymore; I get a 'scan range out of range' error on all VCs. During bootup, however, I can see everything fine. Anyone have any ideas on that one?

Please, anyone, have mercy on a poor old Red Hatter trying to transition to Mandrake, and give me a clue as to where and how the best way to stop and start services is, etc.

Thanks,
Larry

Thanks,
Larry Morley

Norb · 06-07-2007, 05:04 AM

Larry

Check this bit of info out, it maybe of some help. I certainly hope it's okay to post a link to a different site.

http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/udev.htm

A couple more to check out

http://www.debianadmin.com/rename-ne...-in-linux.html

http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/502

Good luck
Norb

HappyTux · 06-07-2007, 08:11 AM

Try creating a file /etc/modprobe.d/network_card with something like this for the contents changing to correct module names.

Code:

## Added by me for proper detection of ethernet card
alias eth0 gem_module_name
alias eth1 1394_module_name

HowDoIProgramIt · 06-07-2007, 10:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Norb

Check this bit of info out, it maybe of some help. I certainly hope it's okay to post a link to a different site.

Thank you very much. Those where the kind of article I was trying to find, but for some reason, ketp coming up short on.

Like I said before, I'm basically trying to bridge the gap between how RedHat-based distributions work and how Debian-based distributions work; I've already understand how udev, etc. work.

You wouldn't happen to know of any others along either those lines or that you otherwise find useful, do you? I KNOW that I'm not the only person in my shoes; I HOPE someone else who's already transitioned from one to the other - or is using more than one distro - has documented their efforts; from what I've seen, read, comments I've heard, etc., moving between distributions seems to be a HUGE stumbling block for a lot of people...

I will, eventually, get this working; if nothing else comes of it, I'm going to document how to perform similar or equivalent tasks on at least these two OS's.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HappyTux

Try creating a file /etc/modprobe.d/network_card with something like this for the contents changing to correct module names.

Code:

## Added by me for proper detection of ethernet card
alias eth0 gem_module_name
alias eth1 1394_module_name

What the heck - I'm not sure what, exactly, just happened here; prior to making the change you suggested, I went into /etc/network/interfaces and s/eth1/eth0/ after creating an /etc/modprobe.conf (as I would have in Fedora). Which, as I now know, won't work under Debian.

What happened, though, is a whole slew of things somehow became enabled: NetworkManager, for example, is now starting, which wiped out /etc/resolv.conf (no big deal, I always bring a spare). NFS (knfsd) and a few other services started, too; I saw them fly by on the virtual console that's visible while the machine's booting - which becomes invisible, as do all the text VCs, once the machine's up (according to every monitor I have, the video card is in some peculiar mode that's using values for hsync & vsync that are way out of range) which is a real problem now, as I can't find those messages in any of the /var/log message files.

I'm not sure what just happened, but something sure did... How do I go about telling what's running, etc., and fix whatever happened (if nothing else, it'd be kind of nice to not have to copy over a new /etc/resolv.conf manually every time I boot the system).

Thanks,

Larry