Hi:
I have an HP laptop running Red Hat 9 (kernel 2.4.20-6
on i686). When I boot, I see the message:

Bringing up interface eth0: 3c501 device eth0 does not seem to be present. Delaying initialization.

When I look in /var/log/messages, I see:
localhost ifup: 3c501 device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization.
localhost network: Bringing up interface eth0: failed

I am assuming I need to download a new driver for the NIC and
rebuild the kernel?

I have a Broadcom BCM5751M NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet
card in the laptop. When I go to the drivers section of Broadcom's
website, I see the following Linux BCM57xxx drivers:
1) Linux (1386, IA64, and x86-64)
2) Linux BASP (1386)
3) Linux BASP (IA64)
4) Linux BASP (x86-64)
Which one do I chose for my laptop?

After I download the appropriate file, I guess I'll unzip
it and I'll have an rpm that will do the job?

Any advice is appreciated.
- Rolf.

The verision of driver you download would depend on the processor you have in your Laptop. I would definatly go with the first option as it looks to be the most rebust and looks like it would have the largest chance of success.

Once you download that file it will probably be in a .tar.gz file in which case you would just unzip it using the command line or a window manager. (If you need help with this post back and we'll let you know how).

Once you get it all unzipped there will probably be a README file that you should look at and that should tell you how to install.

If not by all means post back here and then let us know what distro you're using and we'll see if we can get that ethernet card up and running.

And it's a common misconception that every time you need to add a driver you have to rebuild your kernel. Drivers are actuially very easy to do once you have found it. It's a matter of putting the .o file in the correct directory, running a simple modprobe command and then activating the device. 9/10 times you won't need to rebuild anything.

Cheers

Tap

Most excellent, thank you very much!

OK, I downloaded & got linux-7.3.5.zip. When I unzipped it I got:
bcm5700-7.3.5-1.src.rpm and
README.TXT

README.txt said to do:
rpm -ivh bcm5700-7.3.5-1.src.rpm
which ran fine:
1:bcm5700 #################### [100%]

next I did:

cd /usr/src/redhat
rpmbuild -bb SPECS/bcm5700.spec

This blew up during a "make" stating:

Makefile:46: *** Linux kernel; source tree not found. Stop.
error: Bad status from /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.71006 (%build)

RPM build errors:
Bad exit status from /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.71006 (%build)

Hmmm...I have the following directory:
/usr/src/redhat/
that contains directories BUILD, RPMS, SOURCES, SPECS, SRPMS
I thought this was the kernel source tree? Why isn't the make finding it? Is there something I need to specify so it finds it?

That is mighty odd.

We're running a couple of RH servers here at work and they don't even have the rpmbuild command in them. I'm not 100% sure what exactially that does.

One other thought is are you running the rpm files and everything else as root or just your normal user? For this sort of stuff you may need to su - into root and try re-running the commands again.

Also if you have the /usr/src/redhat directory try doing an ls in there and see if the .rpm package you extracted earlier put in the bcm5700.spec that rpmbuild seems to be looking for.

Something else you may try if the above does not work is perhaps try downloading another driver from that site. I konw I said option one looked the best, but perhaps one of the others may work.

What is the address you got the drivers from? I may download and see what I can see myself

Cheers

Tap

Yes, I am running this as root.

BTW, I am on an Intel Pentium platform.

the -bb switch caused an error when applied in rpm, so I used rpmbuild, as specified in the README

I see /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/bcm5700-7.3.5 that has a bunch of source files in it.

and I see /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/bcm5700.spec is also present

I downloaded the package from:

http://www.broadcom.com/drivers/downloaddrivers.php

Thanks for your help.

rfk,

I took a look at that file, and since you're having so many problems with the rpm install I would suggest you just complile it yourself, which despite the horror stories you may or may not have heard when that word "compile" comes up really isn't all that bad.

In the directory you orignally extracted your file to to get that rpm file in the first place there is now also another .tar.gz file located in there. I would extract that file to another directory. Then navigate to that directory.

su - to become root

Go into the src directory.

Type in make

You will see a large output on your screen. Don't worry about trying to read what it says as it's just the computer doing it's thing, and probably won't make much sence to you anyhow.

Once that has completed type in make install

Again watch as lines of stuff fly across your screen.

Once that is all done type in modprobe bcm5700.o or if you're using a 2.6 kernel modprobe bcm5700.ko

That should load your shiny new driver. Now to bring up your ethernet card type in ifup eth0.

I hope that helps and if not please post back with any error messages you may come up with.

Cheers

Tap