I am having issues with installing an Ethernet Card on a computer Using RedHat 8.0. I am new to this whole Linux thing. I tried a while back gave up trying to figure it out when I figured it down to my Video Card being the issue. I have just recently put a new computer together with a compatible video card, (A Free System I got as a throw away) I'm running into an Ethernet issue here. I've been reading, but have just turned myself inside out trying to wing it. Here is my issue.

I've got an ethernet card (SpeedStream ss1020) with RTL8139cp on the chip. I have gotten that much. In the Dmesg the only thing that I can find about it is
8139cp 10/100 PCI Ethernet Driver v0.0.7 (Feb 27, 2002) And there is nothing in lsmod that I can see. When I try to insmod 8139too or 8139 I get a whole bunch of Symbol Errors. I'm clueless as to where to go from here as far as getting the card to work. Then my next thing is to get it on the internet, but that will be for a diffrent day. I hoped to keep this in the right area so I appologize if it should have been posted somewhere else.

Silver Bear

I forgot to post the Kernel info. It's the standard with RedHat 8.0 2.4.21 Don't know if that will help any, but I put it out there.

As root
try
modprobe 8139cp;

When I modprobe 8139too I get :


Warning: ignoring irq-9, no such parameter in the module
/lib/modules/2.4.18-14/Kernel/drivers/net/8139too.o: init_module:No such device
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.
You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg /lib/modules/2.14.18-14/kernel/drivers/net/8139too.o: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.18-14/kernel/drivers/net/8139too.o failed
/lib/modules/2.4.18-14/kernel/drivers/net/8139too.o: insmod 8139too failed.

This saying I have kernel 2.4.18-14? And dmesg gives me nothing to go on. A bunch of Realtex 8139 SMC activations, but no success from what I see...

Silver Bear

Try using the 8139cp module instead of the 8139too module.

Still won't activate...

That stinks.
What is output when you try to load it?
What is the output of
lsmod;
lspci -v;

lspci -v I got;
00:0d.0 ethernet controler: edimax computer co.: unknown device 9130(rev 10)
subsystem: efficent networks, inc: unknown device 1020
flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, irq 9
I/o ports at d000 [size =256]
memory at dffdff00(32-bit,nonprefetchable) [size =256]
expansion rom at dffc0000 [disabled] [size =64k]
capabilities: [50] power management 2

still no information in lsmod;

Silver bear

Alright I check the vendors download site
http://www.edimax.com.tw/html/englis...b-download.htm

unzip the driver. Under the Linux director it contained only on file
GUID.TXT which contained a bunch of info. The following was the pertinant part

"(2.) Kernel Don't Support Driver:
If your kernel doesn't support RTL8139 series, you should compiler driver
by yourself. Please contact http://www.scyld.com/network/rtl8139.html
to get source code. The compiler command is located on the end of source
code. Maybe like "gcc -DMODULE -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O6 -c rtl8139.c".
If you couldn't compiler success, maybe you should refer to error message
and copy library or head file to Linux."

I then followed the link and ended up downloading all of the drivers from the following link
ftp://ftp.scyld.com/pub/network/netdrivers.tgz

Created a directory and unzipped it into that directory. Ran
make pci-scan.o rtl8139.o;
try inserting the modules;
insmod ./pci-scan.o;
insmod ./rtl8139.0;

If it works the copy the modules into the lib directory.
cp *.o /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net;
cd /lib/modules/`uname -r`;
depmode;
edit the /etc/modules.conf to use this modules instead of 8139too.
Done.

Now I run into a gcc issue. It errors all over the place. Is the RedHat 9.1 any better with the 8139 series? I might upgrade. Or maybe back to Mandrake. *Sigh* I refuse to go back to Windows. Just will not happen. Thanks for the help though g-rod.

Silver Bear

Do you want me to build the driver for you?

*Laugh* I'm a little too hands on for that. I want to know what's happening, How it's done, etc. That's part of the reason that I went to Linux. Something new for me to learn. I may be inexpierenced, but I will pick it up rather quickly. As it sits I'm just inexperienced. That will change and then warch out... Thank you for the offer thoughand again for all the help.

Silver Bear

No redhat 9 will not help.
If you want to learn I can point you in the right direction.
Download the kernel source rpm from redhat for the kernel that you are running.
rpm -ivh ftp:/ftp.rutgers.edu/pub/redhat/linux/8.0/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/kernel-source-2.4.18-14.i386.rpm
Duh you have not network. Its on the second cd.
rpm -ivh /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPM/kernel-source-2.4.18*;
change to the kernel source directory
cd /usr/src/linux/2.4.18-14;
Copy the running config file from boot
cp /boot/config-2.4.18-14* .config;
recreate Makefile
make oldconfig;
create dependancies
make dep;

Now go to where you have the driver an try to build it.

Hehe I actually went into the RedHat distribution forum and someone posted step by step on recompiling the kernel and when I did the compile of the driver from that site went slick, but it still won't activate. I'm learning everything, but what my issue is... If only I had known years ago what fun this is, I would have never gone with windows in the first place. Dmesg and lsmod don't help me any either still, but than again other than Ethernet Edimax Co. (blah Blah) It's all greek to me still...

However when I:

insmod rtl8139

Instead of 30 unresolved Symbol errors I only get two

pci_drv_unregister & pci_drv_register

in that order even.

Silver Bear

Try insmod pci-scan.o first then insmod rtl8139.o