Crazy but true.

I'm installing Gentoo from the LiveCD and I've built & compiled the different stages. When booting from the LiveCD the network stuff is all autodetected and works fine (and downloaded the different stages, etc).

When I boot off of my installed system it attempts but errors with:

*Bringing eth0 up via DHCP [!!]
ERROR: Problems starting needed services
"netmount" was not started.

I'm running a tiny system. A DLink Router/Firewall with a cablemodem plugged in to it, my laptop (from which I'm typing now), and the linux box. The Linux box has a DLink DFE-500TX ethernet card in it - I've selected the DEC 21140 Tulip driver (which seems to be the one that the LiveCD goes for) from the menuconfig and (since I'm running DHCP) have configured /etc/conf.d/net to use DHCP, and of course emerge'd dhcpcd.

Am not sure which other bits of information to include - let me know if I can include anything more - any ideas where the problem is? From this I can't even tell whether it's even the driver or dhcp client?

Thanks

Matt

Check dmesg to make sure the card is recognised..
and it gets to be called eth0 at boot..

Have you compiled drivers into the kernel or as modules?
Did you use genkernel or do it manually?
Are you using the initrd boot or straight to kernel..?

Thanks for your reply. I ran dmesg as you suggested and there's no reference to eth0 ! What kind of craziness is this ! There are a few entries related to IP Protocol, etc, but nothing to do with eth0 - so that's one lead.

In answer to your questions:

The drivers are compiled into the kernel and I did it manually (if I can't get it to work I'll go back and use genkernel), and no I'm not using initrd (my grub.conf makes no mention of it).

Thanks in advance for your help!

Might try compiling the drivers as kernel modules...

Modules aren't necessary... just an option..

If the card doesn't get loaded as eth0, there's a good chance it's the wrong driver compiled in..

Please post the dmesg lines that refer to the ethernet card..
both from the live cd and your kernel pls..

Ok, Thanks. The relavant lines from the LiveCD:
[snip]
Linux Tulip Driver version 1.1.13-NAP (May 11, 2002)
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 0000:00:11.0
tulip0: EEPROM default media type Autosense
tulip0: Index #0 - Media II (#11) decribed by 21140 MII PHY (1) block.
tulip0: MII transveiver #0 config 0000 status 780d advertising 01e1.
eth0: Digital DS21140 Tulip rev 34 at 0xd8d0c000, 00:80:C8:6F:73:A2, IRQ 10.
[snip fbsplash stuff]
eth0: Setting full-duplex based on MII#0 link partner capability of 05e1.


The kernel version has no mention whatsoever of eth0 at all !

hmmm...

How about that. Just changed the driver in menu config from the Tulip one to the generic DEC one and it worked... am pinging ok!

Thanks for all your help anyway!