Need advice about complex networking issue....
 

Hi, let me begin by saying I am not a newbie nor an incompetent Linux user, but time after time Slackware is causing me frustration with its networking. (i.e. I have never had problems with Gentoo nor Arch concerning getting networking going).

Now, it appears that the current huge.s kernel in Slackware64 does not support my Ethernet driver at all. And I've already confirmed that by going by the Slackware wiki and the Slackbook's guidance. And of course, Wifi driver is found okay but because of the complexities getting that up and running, it's too much trouble frankly. So I need somehow to get the driver installed for my ethernet. Okay, it is an Attansic Ethernet, and the current Linux driver found for it is "atl1c" except its just not found in Slackware. So I propose how do I add this driver into my current Slackware kernel, and without networking to assist at that?

Or my other option is installing a completely different and newer kernel somehow, because the distro "Slackel" is the only Slackware derivative that has a 3.2 version of the huge.s and it does support the Ethernet driver, so I'm scratching my head.

I'm just going to be very disappointed if I can't use Slackware at all because of this if that is what it comes down too, although I have such a great interest in doing so.

Can anyone give any helpful ideas?

I could keep using Slackel but somehow I do not feel as though I've accomplished anything as its not pure Slackware per-Se.

Slackware -current is using this kernelThat may or may not be a good solution for you. There is a good chance you'll have problems with some slackbuilds from slackbuilds.org running current. You could also try compiling the 3.2 kernel in 13.37. Maybe just grab the .config file from current and build it on your machine as it stands.

AlienBOB has instructions here for rebuilding a kernel.

Right, that's the one that Slackel has. I will give Alien Bob's article a look. I will leave this as unsolved in the meantime should someone else have any other ideas. Thanks.

One other thing, but to build a kernel from source, do I just download the kernel and then put it on a USB to transfer it to Slackware?

Actually, even better would be a version of Slackware-current as an iso for download. Does that exist?

You'll need to get the source and the .config from a slackware mirror. This is my favorite Those are the two 64 kernels from -current. To stay with that exact version you can use the source from the mirror or you can get the 3.2.18 source from kernel.org.

The easiest way I know to get the iso for current is to use Alien Bob's mirror script If you only have one machine that doesn't have a working network connection that might be difficult. Slackware-current, while generally stable isn't always the simplest to play with, especially if you are planning to use slackbuilds to add programs, which is the most common way to add software in Slackware.

Okay. It's the best shot for me I think. I've decided to just download and compile an installable DVD from Slackware-current altogether.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...vd-iso-948472/

Thanks.

One day, you might need to build a more recent kernel, even if using -current. When that time comes, keep this link handy:

Linux Kernel in a Nutshell

Oh, regarding my original post, when I said "current" I was referring to the current stable kernel, not the current current one.

Slackware 13.37 and Slackware -current come with the atl1c drivers by default, so that can't be your problem, as long as your hardware isn't to new for the 2.6.37.6 in Slackware 13.37. Which hardware do you actually use?

Also, using wireless is as simple as installing wicd from /extra, -current even comes with a network-manager installed by default.

As for my hardware, I am running an Intel i5 processor, sandy-bridge chipset, on an Asus laptop. 6 GB memory. What other hardware would you need to know about. This laptop is pretty new, as I bought it in January of this year.

Concerning Wicd, I almost tried that but the way it sounded according to the Slack Book was that you had to download it first (via ethernet) so I didn't even go that far.

I do believe my hardware is too new for the 2.6.37 kernel as not only did ifconfig -a not register eth0 but also specifiying eth0 192.168.20.10 returned "eth0 device not found" error.

Seriously? You have problems with your network hardware, so don't you think it would be a good idea to let us know which network hardware you use?

I did tell you what network hardware it is. See my first post!