On 18/12/07 00:24, Ken Teh wrote:
> I have a Linux desktop for which lspci reports as having a realtek
> 8110/8169. I could not install it via NFS so I popped in a 3COM card
> and installed it with SL4.5. After installation, I tried to switch back
> to the onboard LAN. I removed the 3com card and modified the network
> config by editing/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and
> /etc/modprobe.conf. Basically replacing the ifcfg-eth0 with the correct
> MAC address and modprobe.conf with the right driver. There is an 
> r8169.ko in the /lib/modules which I believe is the correct driver 
> because I used a sysrescuecd image on the box and it correctly detected 
> the chipset, loaded r8169, and activated the card without any difficulty.
> 
> When I try to do an ifup eth0, I get an error message saying that the
> device has a different mac address than what was expected and it ignored
> my attempt.  I'm stumped by this.    My understanding may be dated but
> as far as I know the information to start the network correctly is in 
> ifcfg-eth0 and modprobe.conf.  I notice that a modprobe r8169 does not 
> generate any messages in dmesg.  So, it could be that r8169 is not the 
> correct driver.  Except for the fact that sysrescuecd used this driver 
> and it also has a 2.6 kernel.
> 
> Can anyone shed any light on this?  Thanks

Drivers evolve and add support for new devices. Your sysrescuecd simply 
might have a newer version of the driver. Since this is an in-tree 
driver, the fact that you cannot install SL45 over it is a good 
indication that it won't be useful later either (unless your 
installation puts an updated kernel on the disk that now has an updated 
driver).

To verify:
try "lspci", identify your network card slot (e.g. '01:0d.0'). Run 
"lspci -vvn -s 01:0d.0". This gives the PCI Id in numeric form (01:0d.0 
Class 0280: MAJOR MINOR..)

Then run "modinfo r8169". This will give a list of PCI IDs (major and 
minor ID concatenated into one big hex number) this driver feels 
responsible for. If your card isn't in there, the driver will ignore it.

If it is there, the driver still may look at the "Subsystem" ID and 
decide it cannot handle that flavour of the card - unfortunately there 
you would need to look into the driver source code to make sure.

The "modinfo" command is something you can run both on SL4 and inside 
the rescue CD, just to see the differences.

With the PCI ID, you can the start Googling for which exact version of 
the driver added support for your card.. or for other drivers that also 
might be able to support this.


best regards
Jan