Ethernet problems
 

Hi,

Ok, I'm having problems installing RH8 on my sony vaio picturebook. I bet the problem is more generic that this, however.

After the install, any time I try to insert the module driver fro my nic, which happens to be 8139too, modprobe tells me that it fails.

Ok, so I recompiled ther kernel, but built this module directly into the kernel, guessing that the distribution module needed to be recompiled for my system.

But, I can not start up my card. Initialization always fails. If i look at the results of kudzu -p, it tells me that the driver for my realtek nic is ... *disabled* ...
even though my kernel compile went through, and my new kernel is bootable.

Is this a hardware issue? I have diabled plug-and-play in my BIOS, is there something else in the bios that might be preventing the nic from working? I do know that when I'm booting from my XP partition, the nic works fine.

Any suggestions?

Best,

Galen Pickett

You said that modprobe says that 8139too fails. Are you sure the module is 8139too and not rtl8139? Check to make sure or just try to use the rtl8139 as module first. Hope this helps.:D

I wasn't sure, but I did look at the output of kudzu -p, and was able to verify that (at least kudzu thinks) my chip is a realtek deal.

After recompiling the kernel with the 8139too module built into the kernel, and after setting the first ide controller to accept 32 bit transfers in my BIOS, the nic was recognized, and the usb controller, and the sound chips, too.

Seeing how well that worked, I removed all my linux partions, leaving the BIOS in the "working" state, and did a clean install of RH 8.0. The distribution kernel still couldn't recognize my hardware. I suppose this sort of thing happens from time to time.