problems installing network
 

hi, i'm trying to install suse linux 8.1 on my toshiba satellite 2400-S202. The ping command is telling me that the network is unreachable and on looking at the /var/log/messages, i see a line that says "modprobe: can't open dependencies file /lib/modules/2.4.18-4GB/modules.dep (no such file or directory)". on tracing the path, i found that there is no abovementioned directory and the directory which contains the modules.dep file is /lib/modules/2.4.18-64GB-SMP. however, even if you execute the modprobe command from the latter directory, the previous message still keeps appearing. what's happening? is it something here that's preventing the network from coming on?

thanks in advance.

kernel modules are specific to each kernel so each time you change your kernel you get a new directory under /lib/modules/

The modules.dep is used to list all module dependencies (it is created using depmod)

I assume suse supplies it's kernel and the modules to suit as an RPM so there may be some problem with the install that has installed the wrong set of modules for the kernel you are running.

IIRC the module path is determined by uname -r so type that at the prompt and see what you get. The path can be altered in the modules.conf file but it is not a good idea to try using modules not spefically compiled for your kernel.

You can make the problem go away by compilig a kernel, that will give you the dual advantage of only compiling in the drivers you need and re-creating those modules and putting them in the correct paths.

Rich

Oh I almost forgot, this may or may not have anything to do with your ping problem. If your network card driver is a module them it may well be the cause (when you try to use the network it is trying to load in the network card driver and failing for the reasons listed above).

If the driver is not a module however you may have other problems. Fix the module thing first and see how you go.

i had solved the issue with reinstalling linux with the suse 8.1 version. however, thanks for the explanation because it's never satisfying to correct a problem without knowing what exactly happened. however, i still haven't managed to get the modem running and my impression from the various websites is that the internal modem in the toshiba satellite 2400-s202 is not compatible with linux. also having some problems with the g77 fortran compiler, which i use quite a lot. thanks.

Hmm can't find what sort of modem it is, you could maybe try scanpci to give you a hint as to what chipset it uses.

What problems with g77? I don;t use it but if it is a problem compiling it I may be able to help

Rich