Hardware Errors on Bootup
 

No trouble running the system, but I get the following messages (repeated about 5 times) in the bootup and was wondering how I could troubleshoot what was causing it.

insmod: /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/net/8139cp.o.gz: init_module: No such device
insmod: /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/net/8139cp.o.gz: Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.

I took a look at the soundcard (some no-name brand), the NIC (Belkin), and the video card (an old ATI 8mb) (my only PCI/AGP cards), and decided to remove the soundcard (currently my system, Slackware 9.0, is independant of any network, but I will be soon plugging it in, so I decided to keep the nic. I can live without sound for the time being).

I'm trying to figure out a) what's being enabled that it can't find, b) why it's trying to be called into activity, and c) how I can stop it from being called. Thanks a lot folks!

a) Its trying to load the module for the newer, weirder realtek 8139 network card variants. Its not enabling anything, its trying to and failing, which is inocuous... you can safely ignore it.

b) probably hotplugging getting overactive, its relatively new and does some funny things like this.

c) it might be as easy as adding the 8139cp module to the /etc/hotplug/blacklist

That's my guess,

Cheers,

Finegan

I don't have my *nix box in front of me, but what would the syntax be to exclude that operation in the /etc/hotplug/blacklist file?

its just a list of modules to ignore, without .o suffixes, for instance here's a chunk of mine:

Cheers,

Finegan

Thanks man, I'll do that straight quick

I added "8139cp" to the end of the blacklist file, but to no avail. It keeps referencing "/lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/net/8139cp.o.gz" which, according to other parts of the bootup message shows:

"8139cp: 10/100 PCI Ethernet driver v0.3.0 (Sep 29, 2002)"

You are for certain not using this ethernet driver right? It doesn't appear in /sbin/lsmod?

The easiest way to get rid of it is... and this is mean, just delete the driver and then run:

depmod -a

To make the module dependency tree forget that its there at all.

Cheers,

Finegan

Well, I haven't tested the NIC yet, but was planning on setting up a little LAN this weekend to work on network connectivity (iptables, et cetera). Would a Belkin nic use the RealTek driver? As for /sbin/lsmod, I'll have to check that out this evening

Belkin just resells other chipsets... for all of the companies out there that produce wired networking kit, there are probably only really something like 20 chipsets really on the market. The read off of /sbin/lspci will sort out what's really there.

Cheers,

Finegan

I'll have some time tonight to pull out the box and tinker a bit. I'll probe around in lsmod / lspci and see what I find

Thank you, again, for all the help!

Okay, lspci read off the following:

{
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc, VT82C598 [Apollo MVP3] (rev 04)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc, VT82C598/694x [Apollo MVP3/Pro123x AGP]
00.07.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc, VT82C596 [Mobile South] (rev 22)
00.07.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc, VT92C586/B/686A/B PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 10)
00.07.3 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc, VT82C596 Power Management (rev 30)
00:13.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/839C/8139C+ (rev 10)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage IIC AGP (rev 7a)
}

What does the lspci look at, specifically? I see it scans through the controllers and the PCI/AGP/ISA cards, but is that it?

My lsmod results are as follows:

I must admit I don't know much about that output ;)

Yep, Belkin distributed realtek chipset card, and the goobledygook must come from the 2 drivers for one card issue... its really a garbage error, hotplugging being a little young and the realtek driver getting split. You're cool and the gang man, to set up the LAN, just run "netconfig" as root, that's going to hack up /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 which you can tinker with by hand if you prefer.

Cheers,

Finegan

Thanks; I was debating working an ICS setup, but it's alittle too much work for me for a connection that's less than 20Kb/s ;) I'll probably run netconfig and see how it changes inet1, and learn from it. Thanks for the help!

Funny, the whole reason I got into Linux was so that I could build a NAT box... this was back when those whoo-hoo dealie yip Linksys routers were a whopping $150 a pop though.

Its a lot easier then you think, just google for Iptables firewall NAT script and use that to get things going and then hack it up later to learn how it works... but remember all the slackware security updates... again Patrick released just before a bunch of landmines appeared.

Cheers,

Finegan

The problem with my current connection is that it literally is on average 5-15 kilobits per second, with frequent disconnects. It's just bad phone lines and a cruddy ISP, but I'm only here for another month or so before I go back up to school and back to my sweet sweet 2mB/s pipe.

I, too, am going to make a NAT/firewall box, and is one of the things I'm working on learning (via ipchains / iptables, threads about closing ports, et cetera), but right now I'm focusing on a desktop machine; something I've not done yet with linux (I have a very basicly-configured slack 8.0 box running a small server at my other house). Eventually I'll move to a full-linux setup, but it's not going to be right now ;) I just need more hardware, more time, and more experience