No network detected, Realtek 8111/8168 issue

jio23 · 03-27-2008, 02:52 PM

Editing done. Glad to help where I can.

htnakirs · 04-18-2008, 08:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jio23

Hi,

Some good progress has been made. I have the old realtek motherboard mounted NIC running with an older driver. To do this i had to go back to Ubuntu 7.04, which recognised the new DLink PCI NIC i had installed. Then I could find a driver that compiled, installed, and worked!

Now both cards work, and i can swap between them on the fly.

The steps i took were:

1 - Downloaded r8168-8.004.00 driver from :
http://wiki.centos.org/HardwareList/RealTekRTL8111b
2 - $ tar jxvf r8168-8.005.00.tar.bz2 # i unpacked this on the desktop
3 - $ sudo mv r8168-8.004.00 /usr/src # move the driver directory from desktop to /usr/src
4 - $ cd /usr/src/r8168-8.004.00
5 - $ sudo make clean modules
6 - $ sudo make install
7 - $ sudo depmod -a
8 - $ sudo insmod ./src/r8168.ko
9 - $ lsmod -a | grep 8186 #just to check it was there
10 - $ cd /etc/modprobe.d
11 - $ sudo touch blacklist-network
12 - $ vi blacklist-network # add r1869 to black list
13 - $ sudo update-initramfs -u #to make the change permanent
14 - reboot
15 - ethtool -i eth0 #to see new driver assigned

After this i could do everything else with using Network and Network Tools apps.

Next step is to get this working with Ubuntu 7.10.

John

I have followed this to the T (accommodating for the repeatedly changing driver versions ) except step 13 where I get a command not found error. I am on Opensuse 10.3. I am using the 005 file (though 004 is also mentioned in the steps) which I got from the Realtek site. All responses to different commands seem to indicate everything is in order. The response to step 15 is
driver : r8168
version: 8.005.00-NAPI
firmware-version:
bus-info: 0000:03:00.0

How can I get the update-initramfs command working? It tried the application manager, and a search comes up without results.. IS this step critical? In the Network manager, the Lan card shows 8169 module as one of the options, though 8168 is selected.

Any suggestions to get the connection on?

aus9 · 04-18-2008, 09:29 AM

step 13...a lot of people use sudo, I don't I like su

sudo is a package that needs to be installed if you do not have already.

so either try
su
update-initramfs -u

or install sudo and retry ?

2) that command is only good if you are using an initrd process are you? You seem to be on a Mdv.....have you tried mdv 2008.1?

htnakirs · 04-19-2008, 12:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aus9

step 13...a lot of people use sudo, I don't I like su

sudo is a package that needs to be installed if you do not have already.

so either try
su
update-initramfs -u

or install sudo and retry ?

2) that command is only good if you are using an initrd process are you? You seem to be on a Mdv.....have you tried mdv 2008.1?

I am using the root account, so I do not enter sudo. The command not found refers to update-initramfs

2. How do I check if initrd is being used? I am on Opensuse 10.3

Is that step critical? Will not the changes be permanent if the command is not given? ARe there other ways to make the changes permanent?

aus9 · 04-19-2008, 01:04 AM

well I do not use suse but it appears they may use mkinitrd command
" Some versions of mkinitrd may require other options to specify the location of the new kernel. On SuSe 9.0, for example, the following syntax is required: $ mkinitrd -k vmlinux-VERSION -i initrd-VERSION "

from http://www.digitalhermit.com/linux/K...ild-HOWTO.html

how to tell?
look into /boot/grub/menu.lst
title your suse
kernel blah blah blah
initrd.....if this line exists you are using an initial ram disk image...most distro do.

2) but that is only actioned on boot up....so you can still test by modprobing your new module checking its running and then running ethtool

htnakirs · 04-20-2008, 12:48 AM

Yes the initrd line exists. I can see the driver in the modprobe results. When I redid the steps, the insmod failed probably because the module was already installed. In ethtool, the IRQ is shown as 255, which is highly suspicious.

By the way, I gave up. Started using a discrete LAN card. Thanks