Hi I have this system based on a supermicro X7DA8 with dual Gigabit Ethernet that i just cant get working. I'm running Slackware 14.1 (64bit)

From what I can determine these Ethernet ports are Intel 82563EB and are supposed to be supported by either the e1000 or the e1000e driver.

Currently I have an old 3COM 3c905B in the system setup as eth0. This works fine. It's there because the other devices don't work.

Here is the relevant output of lspci -v.
(Note that the line "Kernel modules: e1000e" is not
preceded by a "Kernel driver in use:" line):


07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 80003ES2LAN Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) (rev 01)
Subsystem: Super Micro Computer Inc Device 0000
Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 18
Memory at b0300000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K]
I/O ports at 3000 [size=32]
Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [d0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [e0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number 00-30-48-ff-ff-30-a6-2e
Kernel modules: e1000e


07:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 80003ES2LAN Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) (rev 01)
Subsystem: Super Micro Computer Inc Device 0000
Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 19
Memory at b0320000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K]
I/O ports at 3020 [size=32]
Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [d0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [e0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number 00-30-48-ff-ff-30-a6-2e
Kernel modules: e1000e

0a:03.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905B 100BaseTX [Cyclone] (rev 24)
Subsystem: 3Com Corporation 3C905B Fast Etherlink XL 10/100
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 80, IRQ 16
I/O ports at 5000 [size=128]
Memory at b3000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128]
[virtual] Expansion ROM at 40200000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1
Kernel driver in use: 3c59x
Kernel modules: 3c59x

I have tried to modprobe e1000e, modprobe -r e1000e, read another fix, modprobe e1000e, fail, repeat.

dmesg | grep e1000:

[954848.256895] e1000e: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - 2.3.2-k
[954848.257148] e1000e: Copyright(c) 1999 - 2013 Intel Corporation.
[954848.257527] e1000e 0000:07:00.0: Interrupt Throttling Rate (ints/sec) set to dynamic conservative mode
[954848.257855] e1000e 0000:07:00.0: irq 65 for MSI/MSI-X
[954848.508127] e1000e: probe of 0000:07:00.0 failed with error -2
[954848.508379] e1000e 0000:07:00.1: Interrupt Throttling Rate (ints/sec) set to dynamic conservative mode
[954848.508723] e1000e 0000:07:00.1: irq 65 for MSI/MSI-X
[954848.509085] e1000e: probe of 0000:07:00.1 failed with error -2
[955542.827859] e1000e: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - 2.3.2-k
[955542.828019] e1000e: Copyright(c) 1999 - 2013 Intel Corporation.
[955542.828357] e1000e 0000:07:00.0: Interrupt Throttling Rate (ints/sec) set to dynamic conservative mode
[955542.828841] e1000e 0000:07:00.0: irq 65 for MSI/MSI-X
[955543.079194] e1000e: probe of 0000:07:00.0 failed with error -2
[955543.079521] e1000e 0000:07:00.1: Interrupt Throttling Rate (ints/sec) set to dynamic conservative mode
[955543.079849] e1000e 0000:07:00.1: irq 65 for MSI/MSI-X
[955543.080217] e1000e: probe of 0000:07:00.1 failed with error -2


I have also tried to load the e1000 driver:
dmesg | grep e1000:

[958184.303366] e1000: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - version 7.3.21-k8-NAPI
[958184.303575] e1000: Copyright (c) 1999-2006 Intel Corporation.

This doesn't spit out any errors, but still no eth1 or eth2.

tried to google "failed with error -2" but i cant find much. I found:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...device-676915/

But the problem is slightly different in my case. AFAIK the boot rom works.

Any Ideas?

thanks.

The e1000e driver you use doesn't support 80003es2lan chip. The version is too old, 2.3.2. Last version is 3.3.3.

Ah Ha! Many thanks. Anyone have a good guide for updating the driver in Slack 14.1 or should i repost in the Slackware forum.

Thanks

Andrew

Why do you have to use Slackware? The Linux distribution doesn't have new version for long time.

I guess you could compile and install just the driver, but it's probably easier to simply upgrade the kernel.

Since you're running Slackware, you can compile any version you like using the unaltered source code from kernel.org. I always do that whenever I install Slackware, and I've never run into any problems.

You could probably also install a precompiled kernel package from Slackware64-current, but I haven't actually tried that.

If you need further (Slackware-specific) instructions, just ask in the Slackware forum.

Don't let the lack of official releases fool you. Slackware is being actively maintained, and Slackware-current is always available for those who need to run the latest and the greatest.

Furthermore, Slackware 14.2 RC1 was announced on March 17.

Slackware is simple. (Mostly)

Debian's apt tools is great, until it goes wrong. Debian/apt generally works very well, however sometimes if you install something from source outside of the apt system, config file all get screwed. Admittedly if you fully understand Debian I'm sure its an easy fix. I just find more and more you go to a config file and it says DO NOT EDIT, and you end up having to slide things into Debian in the Debian way. Don't get me wrong Debian is great. If you take this methodology to its logical extreme you end up with something like Damn Small Linux. Here you have DSL scripts on top Knoppix scripts on top of Debian scripts. Things start to get wacky. DSL is great at what it does, just difficult to know where to change something.

Sometimes I just want it to work NOW, rather than having to go thru some complicated process. Also the fact that Slackware doesn't keep changing (updating) I find much easier to deal with. Take the other extreme, Firefox, constant updating to the point of absurdity. Its currently at version [by the time you read this it will have changed]. With the auto-update it allows you to get bug fixes relatively quickly, but also EVERY buggy version quickly. It would be unfair to say Debian is like this but still, I find by the time i start to understand a version its time to upgrade. Every point i have made here i admit has a workaround/solution/requires more knowledge.

So far Slackware 14.1 has given me the least grief. Im sure other people have had different experiences. This is the first real problem I've had with it.


s/Debian/$linux_dist/g || print "YMMV";

Andrew

Thanks, and for the other suggestions.