Re: Install problems: 3.0r1/i386 and Realtek 8319 network card
On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 06:46:13AM -0500, Mike M wrote:
> On Monday 27 January 2003 05:47, Anand Buddhdev wrote:
> > I want to install Debian over the network. I downloaded the 2 'vanilla'
> > boot floppies, rescue.bin and root.bin, and booted with those. They
> > have kernel 2.2.22, and they did not recognise my ethernet card. Then
> > I decided to try the 2.4bf floppies, which have kernel 2.4.18. I see in
> > the kernel config that the following 3 device drivers are compiled in:
> >
> > CONFIG_8139CP=y
> > CONFIG_8139TOO=y
> > CONFIG_8139TOO_8129=y
>
> I run routers with US$7 8139s and US$800 wan cards. They both work pretty
> well for me. The price difference is striking, is it not?
>
> About a year ago I also had problems with rtl8139 drivers. After googling
> around I found that some people used an older driver compiled from source to
> solve the problems. It may be the case that the other distros you mention
> have the older driver included and that the more recent Debian distro has the
> newer driver.
>
> If you are interested in learning more about this possible fix, contact me
> off-list and I will send a tar file to you of the old and new driver source.
> The compile instructions are simple and included in the source (thank you Mr.
> Becker). Hmmm. You may need someone to compile the driver for you lest you
> have a chicken-egg problem. I have a Woody/vanilla i386 system.
I did some more digging. I downloaded a stock 2.4.18 kernel from
kernel.org and examined the drivers/net/8139cp.c file. The driver version
number is defined as 0.0.6. I then installed the kernel-source RPM on my
RedHat 7.3 system, and examined the 8139cp.c file in there, and it has
some more code in it, added by David Miller of RedHat, and the version
number is now 0.0.7. So there has perhaps been some improvement in the
driver. I then downloaded the 2.4.18 -> 2.4.19 patch, and I notice that
David Miller's patch has made it into 2.4.19. So what I may try to do
is to build a stock 2.4.19 kernel using the Debian configuration file,
copy the resulting kernel to the boot floppy, and see if it will see be
able to use the network interface.
--
Anand Buddhdev
http://anand.org
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