I installed Slackware 14.1 (64-bit) yesterday, after trying it out first in a VMware session where everything worked fine. I've enjoyed following through the recommended installation steps. But when I got to the slackpkg update part, it failed. Try as I might, I couldn't connect to the internet. I couldn't get the ethernet connections (eth0 and eth1) working. I searched and experimented for hours (netconfig, hostname, ifconfig, route -n, /etc/resolv.conf, /etc/HOSTNAME, dhcpcd, lspci, lsmod, dmesg, DEBUG=YES etc). Nothing worked, it always failed to kickstart eth0 into life, though strangely [at the time] not eth1. eth0 always failed with 'link down', 'link is not ready' and 'timed out'.

I tried booting into an Ubuntu live session. After digging a little further, found that it had managed to access the internet with eth1 - which was something that Slackware had failed to do.

After something of a light-bulb moment, I powered down my five-year old Shuttle XPC (SX58H7, i920) and looked at the ports on the back. I found two network ports. Neither were labelled. My router cable was [obviously] plugged into one of them. I unplugged it and switched it over to the other network port.

On booting up into Slackware again, all my connection problems went away. I can now access the internet. I'm typing this in Konqueror. I'm not sure if anyone else has discovered this "feature" - I did try a forum search beforehand - but I hope someone with the same problem in the future finds this message.

I could try reporting this as a bug, if that would help? Also, mods can mark this thread as [SOLVED] if they so wish.

I'm going to CloneZilla my Slackware partition now ASAP...

hm.. did you do a ?

it could be one of the 2 nics dont have a driver.

Here's the output of lspci (which I'd tried earlier, as I mentioned). There are two entries for the Realtek NICs, presumably one each for eth0 and eth1. Surely that means both have a driver?

bash-4.2# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub to ESI Port (rev 12)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 12)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev 12)
00:07.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 7 (rev 12)
00:14.0 PIC: Intel Corporation 7500/5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub System Management Registers (rev 12)
00:14.1 PIC: Intel Corporation 7500/5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub GPIO and Scratch Pad Registers (rev 12)
00:14.2 PIC: Intel Corporation 7500/5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub Control Status and RAS Registers (rev 12)
00:14.3 PIC: Intel Corporation 7500/5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub Throttle Registers (rev 12)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4
00:1a.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5
00:1a.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6
00:1a.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Root Port 1
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 2
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Root Port 3
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 90)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JIR (ICH10R) LPC Interface Controller
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) 4 port SATA IDE Controller #1
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SMBus Controller
00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) 2 port SATA IDE Controller #2
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)
04:00.0 IDE interface: JMicron Technology Corp. JMB368 IDE controller
05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK104 [GeForce GTX 670] (rev a1)
05:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GK104 HDMI Audio Controller (rev a1)
ff:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 QuickPath Architecture Generic Non-Core Registers (rev 05)
ff:00.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 QuickPath Architecture System Address Decoder (rev 05)
ff:02.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 QPI Link 0 (rev 05)
ff:02.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 QPI Physical 0 (rev 05)
ff:03.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller (rev 05)
ff:03.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Target Address Decoder (rev 05)
ff:03.4 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Test Registers (rev 05)
ff:04.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Channel 0 Control Registers (rev 05)
ff:04.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Channel 0 Address Registers (rev 05)
ff:04.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Channel 0 Rank Registers (rev 05)
ff:04.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Channel 0 Thermal Control Registers (rev 05)
ff:05.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Channel 1 Control Registers (rev 05)
ff:05.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Channel 1 Address Registers (rev 05)
ff:05.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Channel 1 Rank Registers (rev 05)
ff:05.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Channel 1 Thermal Control Registers (rev 05)
ff:06.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Channel 2 Control Registers (rev 05)
ff:06.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Channel 2 Address Registers (rev 05)
ff:06.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Channel 2 Rank Registers (rev 05)
ff:06.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon 5500/Core i7 Integrated Memory Controller Channel 2 Thermal Control Registers (rev 05)

Ah, yes, I bet that this is the /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules "issue".

On a fresh install, udev will automatically find ethernet cards, give them names, and records that in 70-persistent-net.rules. (Well, it's really the case that if /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules doesn't exist on startup, udevd will make it. If it's there on startup, udevd will simply use what's in there and not screw with it.) For whatever reason, udev found the cards in the reverse order than you thought they should be. Instead of switching cables, you can edit that file to swap the names of the two cards and reboot.

If you have only one NIC (like most folks), you won't see the problem.

I've got a machine with three NICs and have seen this.

maybe try to blacklist 8169 and install the latest 8168 from realtek.com.tw
that should make both cards work.

to see the driver just type:

Hi,

If the problem is '/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules' then I would suggest deleting that file and reboot. System will regenerate that file;Giuliano Marco, please use vbcode tags when posting long lists, data or code. That way the thread is cleaner therefore easier to read to provide diagnosis of the problem.

You can look at Slackware Doc Project;

Thanks for all the replies. To recap, I believe my XPC has just the one Realtek network chip (RTL8111/8168) on the motherboard, running both ports on the backplate. I don't really have a problem as such anymore, now I've switched sockets and got eth0 up and working (and read further down the BG, see below).

onebuck: I was following my way through the beginners' guide, from the post-installation overview. It was when I got to the 'Configure a Package Manager' that I [seemingly] started having problems, not being able to connect to a mirror via ftp. I realise now if I had scrolled down the page some more, I would have found the 'Configure your Network' section, with the highlighted yellow warning 'netconfig only deals with the wired connection for eth0'. Lesson learned: use the scroll wheel next time. 8)

But could I humbly suggest moving the network configuration instructions *above* the package manager configuration section in the beginners' guide, in case anyone else trips up like I did?

Right. Now I'm off to switch to a generic kernel... (still enjoying it!)