NIC not found after reboot (bcm4400, argh) Gentoo 2008

jregele · 02-12-2009, 01:51 PM

Networking worked fine chrooted from the live cd, but as soon as I rebooted my nic is no longer recognized.

lsmod shows I have no modules loaded. I tried modprobe bcm4400 and the module can't be found.

Any ideas? I downloaded the latest driver from broadcom, but had to do it to a windows box and burnt it to cd. when i tried to mount the cd i got unknown file system udf. But there has to be a way to get the drivers at least loaded as a module without dealing with windows crap.

I'm not a total newb, but feelin more like one now.

Thx in advance

syg00 · 02-12-2009, 05:10 PM

Depends how you built the kernel - on gentoo I never use modules, so a problem like this means a re-compile.
No big deal - just a housekeeping task under gentoo.

As a general problem solving tip, boot the liveCD and do lsmod - always useful for finding what works for it. Then try the same module on your real system. Try b44 - it supports that chip; maybe even a modprobe will work if you are lucky.

jregele · 02-13-2009, 12:17 AM

I re-compiled the kernel and found that I hadn't enabled loadable modules ( I also agree that this shouldnt be a module, but I don't know why the kernel is not configuring correctly). So I also recompiled the modules. I ran
make && make modules_install

But still I get this message on startup (Im just typing it up):

Code:

Starting eth0
Bringing up eth0
dhcp
network interface eth0 does not exist
please verify hardware or kernel module (driver)

Same thing for eth1. modprobe b44 and modprobe bcm4400 result in Module X not found. I have the source and header files for b44 in /lib/modules/'uname -r'/build/drivers/net, but I need a .o or .ko for modprobe to work. I could simply compile the module, but I know there are best practices, and then other options. Would rather learn the clean way. I did some googling and found that the sources are kept in 2 places, and don't want to cause further problems by making a mess.

Gentoo site has been down all day, so no handbook. i suspect i also need to do env-update, but there is a second command after that, which i don't recall, and, once again, no handbook.

what are my options? If i were to compile b44 myself, how/where should I do it, and i put them in /lib/modules/'uname -r'/ ? this is what i assume from the output of modprobe -l.

syg00 · 02-13-2009, 03:00 AM

Have you included all the b44 options compiled in ??.
Don't worry about the env-update; you should only need that if chroot'ing from the liveCD. I presume you have a usable system to do the (re-)compile in.
What does the liveCD use to control the BCM4400 ?.

jregele · 02-13-2009, 01:22 PM

The live cd has bcm43xx, although I tried to modprobe bcm43xx after rebooting into the system and still I get

Code:

FATAL: Module bcm43xx not found

I have a usable system to re-compile and I did recompile yesterday, although since I am new to compiling my own kernel, I am unsure of what happened to the 'old' one. Do I need to point to it the recompiled kernel somehow, or just reboot? Or does it just start using the new one?

syg00 · 02-13-2009, 03:21 PM

You need to copy the kernel across to (normally) /boot, and update the bootloader.
Maybe you should look at genkernel.

jregele · 02-13-2009, 04:51 PM

Maybe I'm wrong, but genkernel seems like its for folks not interested in figuring out how to do this, but then why deal with gentoo in the first place?

Quote:

You need to copy the kernel across to (normally) /boot, and update the bootloader.

That i figured. But googling only gave me this

Code:

make clean
make
make modules_install
make install

which resulted in LILO not found. Obviously, because I am using GRUB.

I remember there is a command or two that makes a (symbolic?) link from the boot folder to the kernel in /usr/src. Or do I just cp the newly compiled kernel to /boot. Tried that, but i now suspect I'm making a mess, as I cannot copy the kernel in after having saved the current to a dir /opt/kernel-bak/ because now I am getting

Code:

No space left on device

, ie. the kernel is too big for the boot partition. So it must be a symbolic link.

i know its just a few commands, but the bloody gentoo site is still down. i can ping them with no lost packets, but can't pull the thing up for the second day now.

so I got my new kernel, and my boot folder. how to link them?

btw, I found where my nic drivers were in make menuconfig, so that problem should be solved once i boot into the new kernel.

you're the guru, so i appreciate all the schoolin i can get.

cheers!

jregele · 02-13-2009, 07:20 PM

Got it!

I found another version of the handbook hosted on a different server. Used min-CD to chroot in. I had copied the wrong file over to /boot

Re-compiled the kernel, copied bzImage to boot/uname -r, rebooted, and whooHoo!