Atheros AR8151 problems
 

Being newbie in LINUX world,i don't know which linux distro suite me.So i am trying various distros.
This time i am trying Slackware 13.1 after Fedora 14
but i am having problem connecting to internet through Slackware.I think my NIC is not detecting only even after running 'pppsetup' and 'netconfig'.And 'ifconfig eht0' gives nothing about ip address or Mac address.
Having DSL connection,Atheros AR8151 pci-e gigabit ethernet controller(wire),Gigabyte G41M-Combo motherboard.Please help
Thanks in advance

It seems the Atheros AR8151 is a relatively recent chip. A netsearch found pages detailing it in kernel development in ~Feb 10 and distros fixing up older kernels for it ~Aug 10.

Slackware 13.1 uses the 2.6.33 kernel (the uname -r command on your system should confirm) which does not support the AR8151 unless Slackware have modified it.

It should (TM) be possible to build a driver (strictly speaking a loadable module) for the AR8151 from source code at
http://partner.atheros.com/Drivers.aspx but that would be ambitious (not impossible) as a newcomer to Linux.

Maybe your best bet, given this hardware, might be to try Linux-based distros that are more "bleeding edge" and so have AR8151 support built in.

To attract people with the most relevant knowledge you could change your thread title to something like "Atheros AR8151 problems".

Before the release of Fedora 14, which supports my card without installing any driver,i was using Fedora 13 and it was having the same problem like Slackware 13.1.But,accidently i found one thread on how to run my nic card by modifying 'MakeFile'(actually commenting some portion of ifeq loop)in 'src' directory after extracting 'AR81Family-linux-v1.0.1.14.tar.gz'.After running 'make' and 'make install',generated 'atl1e.ko' must be copied under '/lib/modules/----'
directory.But it is not working in Slackware

A netsearch found there are or have been several problems with the atl1e module source from a corrupt tarball (presumably now fixed) to it being designed for the 2.6.25 kernel. Solutions include modifying the makefile (as you did earlier) in one case building as atl1c. Another alternative is a pre-built module for the 2.6.33 kernel but I could not find one for Slackware; might be worth trying first because it's the easiest and quickest.

wanna be a slacker because i really want to know linux and in my opinion the best linux users who always troubleshoot newbie's or other's query are Slackers
But i won't be able to connect my Slackware machine to internet
so switching back to CentOS :(

The next version of Slackware will almost certainly have support for the AR8151 so you could try again when it comes out (no date set).

i am eagerly waiting
after all i want to become like you guys and proudly call myself "THE SLACKER"

thanks

All things come to he who waits :D

Hi All,

I dont know if its too late to give here.
But I think this link will others.

I installed Slackware13.37 and yet my Athro-eth0-debiltitus nic still doesn't play
 

Title line say it all; and no luxury of going to ubuntu or centos (too much time invested in the slackkage), but the damn nic still isn't seen (by ifconfig).... he still no play nice

on one of my own threads (aka a plea for help, trying to get an ODD issue fixed on a brand new system that happens to have this nic) I got a link to a thread on the ubuntu forums, but they have tools we don't (at least they didn't execute on my system), and somehow they can - or did -

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1806056

all of these are dated entries, so I have to really believe it's been dealt with (a couple of kernel releases ago), and I'm just a d.s.

please, am I missing... brain cells?

Post your lspci output. I'm not going to take it for granted that you actually have the exact same card and chipset as the OP.

Run "dmesg" and check for error messages related to the card too.

A quick Google search shows that all the OP should have needed to do was build the driver from source.

http://rhythmcloud.blogspot.com/2010...0-gigabit.html

Upgrading to the latest kernel would have been a worthwhile thing to try too.

Also, if you haven't tried the card in another OS, then consider the possibility that it might be broken.

dugan,
is your request to me?

if so, the operative line from lspci (the last one reported) is:

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Devoce 1083 (rev c0)

with -nn suffix, its same except for the [0200] added after "Ethernet controller" and 1083 is replaced with [1969:1083]

I've been trying to chase a patch generated by a ubuntu forum guy m0gwai:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1677122

one slackware user (page four of the above thread link (using the same linux release) seemed to solve his problem, but mine won't perform the patch operation. That situation related in my post there:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1876063

regards

---------------For me this is a solved problem ---------------------------

Late update:
Not sure why the patch effort described in http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1677122
didn't work against the distribution copy of the atl1e_main.c, but, it didn't
(used that since it was already in the "proper location" for these files.... perhaps dumb thinking!)
I remembered reading somewhere that there was at least some report of some files in this topic haveing become corrupted, so I beat the patch file against the copy available from the link on m0gwai's solution.... and that played like a stratavarius violin:
the patch went perfectly
the make went perfiectly
(at which point I thought I needed to go clean up the garbage I had created in the first attempt)
so I set the old driver (atl1e.ko) aside and moved the new one into it's place.
made sure the old driver wasn't still lurking in the kernel with a modprobe -r and then loaded the new one.... ifconfig showed me the eth0 was up, and I was able to ping my local router. Yee-haw!
Never did do the "install" (oops.. that'll probably bite me in the rear some time... but for now: success! )

all the new files are in a separate directory under root, so I sould be able to fixit again, should a future sw upgrade need assistance too.

Atheros AR8151 PCI-E
 

If you use Atheros AR8151 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.20), you may have a look at the page below for some suggestions:

http://mindmapapp.blogspot.com/2012/...t-card-on.html