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Problems in Slackware w/ Network after Compiling Kernel 2.6.9

I have done some searching in old threads but can't find anything that helps me, so here goes:

I run a Slackware 10 installation. I recently compiled a fresh kernel (2.6.9; old kernel was 2.4). Everything seems to work as before, except 2 problems, but the more pressing problem is that the network no longer works.

I had initially told xconfig, while choosing the options for the 2.6.9 kernel, to include only Realtek NIC drivers--but after wrestling with no ethernet for awhile, I figured out that I have a VIA Rhine II onboard NIC, so I recompiled the kernel w/ VIA Rhine drivers included.

Now ifconfig shows an ethernet and MAC address instead of just a feedback loop, but when I run a modprobe eth0 (or eth1,eth2, eth3) it says nothing is found, and I still can't access the internet or my home network.

Help!

I have also run netconfig to no avail--all settings as shown in ifconfig are correct.

The name of the module is via-rhine not eth0. So if you compiled it as a module do "modprobe via-rhine".

OK, i just did modprobe via-rhine and it didn't return the error message. So it looks like it's there. Ifconfig shows the NIC active on eth0.

So why isn't my network working?

I just tried netconfig again and told it to use dchp... no avail... help :)

You're probably going to need load the module before bring the NIC up. You could take the NIC back down now that the module is loaded and then bring it back up. To do that under Slackware, just do this:

Take it down

Code:

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 stop

Bring it back up

Code:

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 start

See if your network works now. If it doesn't then you may have some of the settings wrong. Look at the output when you started it and make sure it's correct. For instance, something like this:

Code:

root@corvette:/etc/rc.d# ./rc.inet1 start

Configuring eth0:

/sbin/ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.2 broadcast 192.168.0.255 netmask 255.255.255.0

I'm not sure this will solve your issue though. Because the kernel you had installed previously was working with it, correct? If so, then it too probably loaded the driver as a module. If it did, then that it should have been loaded when you rebooted into the new kernel as well, assuming you didn't leave it out of the new kernel. And you must not have left it out since it loads manually for you using modprobe. Anyway, you may want to take a look at /var/log/message & /var/log/syslog to check for any errors related to it. You may also want to look at /etc/rc.d/rc.modules to make sure the module is being loaded into the kernel at startup.

BTW, are you sure this is a NIC driver issue? The more I think about it, the it appears to me to be a kernel networking support issue rather than an issue with the NIC driver itself. When configuring the kernel, did you include "TCP/IP networking", "Packet socket", & "Unix domain sockets"? Have a look at your .config file and make sure they are there. At the very minimum, you'll need these:

Code:

CONFIG_NET=y

CONFIG_PACKET=y

CONFIG_UNIX=y

CONFIG_INET=y

CONFIG_NETDEVICES=y

CONFIG_NET_ETHERNET=y

CONFIG_NET_PCI=y

CONFIG_VIA_RHINE=m

Ok, seems that all I had to do was enter the command

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 start

and it worked instantly.

The question is, why didn't it work before, through the several restarts I did? Isn't Linux supposed to automatically start it?

Yes. Maybe it was compiled into your old kernel vs being loaded as a module. Have a look at /etc/rc.d/rc.modules and see if the modprobe line is there to load it. If not, add it and reboot to see if it works.