Hi,
I'm a Linux newbie, and I put together a Shuttle SB86i PC for around $500 just so I could fool around without ANY fear of destroying important data. If I could fix these two problems, I think I could stand a chance to learn a lot more on my own. Help!

Problem #1:
I have a Marvell 88E8053 ethernet card. How do I get it to work?? I'm running FC5, freshly installed. (I've heard of sky2, which FC5 has...but it doesn't work. I've heard of sk98lin, but I can't even FIND that for Linux kernels above 2.6, and I think that's becomming deprecated anyway.) I see the light on the back of the computer by the ethernet connector is on, but whenever I try to use the internet it shows I'm not connected. It can't get my IP for some reason on eth0.

Problem #2:
When I shut down my PC, I get a black screen. And then that's it. Just, BAM! - black screen. Then the only way to REALLY turn off the PC is to go in the back and yank it's power cord while uttering the magic (curse) words.

Anyone know how to fix either problem with simple instructions for a freshborn newb such as myself? Appreciate the help!

Anyone? I'm really stuck!

My list shows no Linux drivers for any Marvell card. You'll have to use ndiswrapper, or better yet, get a different card.

The black screen is probably apic related ... You could add "noapic" to the end of the "kernel" line in your Grub file. If you don't have the most recent kernel, a kernel upgrade may fix it, as well.

Edit: Sorry. I assumed your Marvell card was for wireless. Rereading the post seems to suggest it might not be.

Yes, sorry I was not clear on that. This is NOT for wireless. Unfortunately, replacing the card is not really an option as it is a Shuttle PC, so it is all integrated. I do have one available PCI slot, but it would be a real shame to have to use that one slot up for something that I already have integrated on board!

I will do some searches about "noapic", thanks. I did just recently upgrade to the newest version of Fedora Core 5 to see if that would fix the problem, but it doesn't. Previously I had FC4, and it did the same thing.

In FC4/FC5, I believe the sk98lin driver has been replaced by the skge driver. You can update your /etc/modprobe.conf, for example:

alias eth0 skge

You can manually load the driver with:

modprobe skge

You should see the interface initialize in dmesg:

dmesg | tail -n 20

Good news and bad news. The good news is the "noapic" command WORKED. As Napoleon Dynamite would say: "Yessssssssss!"

Um...could you explain what that does?

--------------------

The bad news is I had zero success getting the Ethernet up and running. I information collected, and hopefully some of this info will help.

1. Going into Preferences->Network, I see that the Device Status is "inactive". Next tab - Hardware, I see eth0 status: OK. Next tab - DNS. I have Hostname = localhost.localdomain . My Primary DNS is 127.0.0.1 . Do these settings sound incorrect? I'm not sure what else to put. I have no static IP so the next tab shouldn't be relevant.

2. I tried "alias eth0 skge" in a Terminal window. All I got was:
3. Next I typed "modprobe skge". Digging through the entire dmesg I see:
Another few lines that looked relevant further down:
I saw no message about init in the last 20 lines, as you suggested.


4. I typed ifconfig and this is what I get:
I hope something I just typed helps you diagnose what could be going wrong. I expected wireless setup to be a problem, but I am surprised that being hooked directly up to the cable modem has been so challenging! Still, I' m getting excited...I think we can get this to work

More ideas?

As I indicated, this is a command that needs to be placed into /etc/modprobe.conf, to replace the existing entry for eth0, if any.

Your network interface is being recognized by the driver. You just need to restart your network (assuming it is correctly configured to autostart at boot, and for your ISP):

service network restart

Okay, I thought I did try that, but just to be sure I went back and tried again. I edited my modprobe.conf and took out the lines it had for eth0 and eth1. I replaced with "alias eth0 skge".

When I rebooted, it still could not find an IP. I went in to the Network administration, clicked "Activate", but it just said "Determining IP..." until it timed out. I tried going into a terminal and modprobing skge. It didn't complain or seem to do anything obvious. Back in the control panel, I deactivated eth0, reactivated again, and checked out dmesg like you suggested. Here's what it says:

I really did type "skge" and not "sky2" in my modprobe.conf! Honest!

Ideas?

Well, have you checked the basics:

- Do you have link status lights on on both sides of the wire?

- Have you tried replacing the cable?

- Have you tried switching to a crossover cable, if your router does not have auto-configuring ports?

- Are you sure your router is 100Base-T compatible?

- If you have never gotten the interface to work, perhaps it's simply broken. That it's not reporting flow control in either direction sounds suspicious to me.

Update: Try booting a Knoppix CD; if the network works see which driver is loaded, and how it is configured.

Update2: You mentioned that you were running FC5 "freshly installed". Have you applied the (considerable) maintenance? You can download it to a DVD from another machine and apply it locally.

Good questions. I will do my best to answer.

- The status light turns on in the back of the computer when I plug in the ethernet cable.

- I'm sure the cable works, because it's the same one I use for my Windows PC.

- I'm not using my router (yet). I figure if I can't get it to work when directly plugged in to the cable modem, then adding a router just adds another possible problem.

- I've tried Knoppix, and still no Internet.

I guess I'll install Windows XP on the machine just to see if I can ever get Internet connectivity. *Sigh* I was hoping it wouldn't come to that

There is an excellent thread with good advice by Nadjor that helped me get eth0 (Marvel/Yukon/SysKonnect) going under FC 4 kernel 2.6.17-1.2141_FC4 after SK98LIN became disabled and I could not get eth0 to fire up.

In a nutshell, after trying the bash command 'ifup eth0' and then using 'lsmod' to examine the difference between the output under the kernel that did work and the latest, which like FC5, does not activate eth0 (to the outside ISP), I then added the following lines (I added the skge line) to:
/etc/modprobe.conf

alias etho sklin98
alias etho skge

That is, both added, because the newer kernels use skge. Others have suggested sky and sky2 ... but this worked for me.

Apocoloco wrote: I have a Marvell 88E8053 ethernet card. How do I get it to work?? I'm running FC5, freshly installed. (I've heard of sky2, which FC5 has...but it doesn't work. I've heard of sk98lin, but I can't even FIND that for Linux kernels above 2.6, and I think that's becomming deprecated anyway.) I see the light on the back of the computer by the ethernet connector is on, but whenever I try to use the internet it shows I'm not connected. It can't get my IP for some reason on eth0.

Drg>> If the light is on it sounds as though the hardware is working and eth0 is physically connected. You may need to use a login script to get access to your ISP through the (cable??) modem. I use BPALOGIN for this purpose to connect to BigPond Australia. Depending on where you are in the workd there will similar scripts for local access.