Broadcom driver installation help needed
 

Hi!
I have just installed OpenSuSe 10.0 on my Dell Latitude D600 laptop. Everything but the network card seems to work perfectly.
I have a Broadcom Gigabit 570x network card, and there does not seem to be a driver prepared for it in the distribution. At least I can't find it in the driver list in YaST, and the laptop does not connect to the LAN.

So, I downloaded a driver from www.broadcom.com, and performed a command line install, exactly as the instructions in the driver README say.
It still doesn't work, though. I can't get YaST to show the Broadcom driver in the list, so I can't choose that driver when configuring my card.
I would really appreciate som help on this.


Here are the instructions that I followed:

(a note before reading: when I installed, my package ended up in RPMS/i586, and not in RPMS/i386, as section 3 says)

"Installation Notes
Broadcom tg3 Linux Driver
[...]

This file describes the tg3 Linux driver for the Broadcom NetXtreme
10/100/1000 Mbps PCI/PCI-X/PCI Express Ethernet Network Controllers.

[...]

Limitations
===========

The current version of the driver has been tested on 2.4.x kernels starting
from 2.4.24 and all 2.6.x kernels. The driver may not compile on kernels
older than 2.4.24. Testing is concentrated on i386 and x86_64 architectures.
Only limited testing has been done on some other architectures.

Minor changes to some source files and Makefile may be needed on some
kernels.

[...]

Installing Source RPM Package
=============================

The following are general guidelines for installing the driver.

1. Install the source RPM package:

rpm -ivh tg3-<version>.src.rpm

2. CD to the RPM path and build the binary driver for your kernel:

cd /usr/src/{redhat,OpenLinux,turbo,packages,rpm ..}

rpm -bb SPECS/tg3.spec

or

rpmbuild -bb SPECS/tg3.spec (for RPM version 4.x.x)

Note that the RPM path is different for different Linux distributions.

3. Install the newly built package (driver and man page):

rpm -ivh RPMS/i386/tg3-<version>.i386.rpm

The driver will be installed in the following path:

2.4.x kernels:

/lib/modules/<kernel_version>/kernel/drivers/net/tg3.o

2.6.x kernels:

/lib/modules/<kernel_version>/kernel/drivers/net/tg3.ko

4. Load the driver:

insmod tg3.o
or
insmod tg3.ko (on 2.6.x kernels)
or
modprobe tg3

5. To configure network protocol and address, refer to various Linux
documentations.
"

Thank You!

/Fredrik Israelsson

were there any errors during install? when loading the modules?

what does return (may only be in roots path)

Magic!!
I just rebooted in order to check ifconfig, and instead of logging in as one of my ordinary users at the loggin screen prompt, I logged in directly as root. The effect of this: I'm currently posting from a browser running on a desktop with text in english (used to be swedish for my ordinary user), and the LAN connection is working.

Before writing the first post in this thread, I used to log in as an ordinary user, and then issuting "su - root" before issuing the administrative commands.

I wonder what happens if I log out now, and log in as an ordinary user instead...

...I'll be back!

/Fredrik

Well, I'm puzzled. Now the network connection works perfectly. I promise You, I have tried restarts before, without success. Why did it work this time?

Well, here's what YaST says:

"Network Card Cofiguration Overview
==================================

NE 2000 (PCI) DHCP
Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter DHCP
Dell Latitude D400 Not configured"

... and here's my ifconfig output, with addresses manually censored:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
inet addr:xx.xx.xx.xx Bcast:xx.xx.xx.xx Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: xx::xx:xx:xx:xx/xx Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:51 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:65 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:8239 (8.0 Kb) TX bytes:6590 (6.4 Kb)
Interrupt:11

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:26 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:26 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1644 (1.6 Kb) TX bytes:1644 (1.6 Kb)