Super newbie question - please redirect if not appropriate

akbhargava · n00b Joined: 21 Feb 2005 Posts: 5 Location: Cambridge, MA

Hi,

I am a Linux newbie and I am trying to install Gentoo on my 1998 Pentium II Dell. I understand very little of Linux - I essentially have a basic understanding of Unix but not much beyond that.

I followed the Gentoo Handbook in painstaking detail and successfully completed the installation. The problems:
- no network: /sbin/ifconfig only shows lo0
- doing an "lsmod" returns a single dummy module - I do not understand modules etc but I think there should be something there.

I would appreciate any and all guidance or redirection.

BTW I did have trouble with the following during the installation. From the handbook:
- 5.e Configuring the Compile Options - CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS - trouble with the -march= flag - I think I set it to i686 for the Pentium II
- 6.a Chrooting - Configuring the USE variable - no idea what to do here so I left it undefined/blank
- 7.c Default: Manual Configuration - Activating Required Options - I was a blind man and basically trawled the options picking things on instinct. Its possible I did not include the relevant network options here (altho I did include all the ones I guessed necessary - was I supposed to include Intel 10/100 Eth support also?)

Thanks again in advance!
akb
:roll:

akbhargava · n00b Joined: 21 Feb 2005 Posts: 5 Location: Cambridge, MA

One detail I forgot to mention: the Dell is in my home network: using a Linksys BEFW11S4 connected to a cable modem. The Dell is connected via a hub to the BEFW11S4 - entirely wired path (i.e. not wireless). So Gentoo on the Dell is sposed to use DHCP to get its IP addr and DNS info.

Thanks,
akb

Tb0ne · n00b Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 25

You need to enable support for your network card in your kernel. Which module to select depends on which card you have. Run "lspci" to find out some details about the various devices on your system. Your network card will be listed there (assuming it is a PCI network card). You can then take that information and look at the various modules in the networking section of the kernel config and choose the right one. You can either build the driver as a module (the M option), or directly into the kernel (the Y option). Building it into the kernel makes it faster, and always present, whereas building it as a module allows you to dynamically load and unload the module as needed, however it takes a little longer to load the module at boot.

The gentoo livecd most likely detected your network card and loaded the appropriate module. If you boot back into the Livecd and run lsmod it will be in that list, and you can use that as a source of information to find the right driver to enable in your kernel.

Also since you say you need DHCP, make sure you emerge a DHCP client like dhcpcd while still in the livecd, if you haven't done so already.

Hope this helps!

akbhargava · n00b Joined: 21 Feb 2005 Posts: 5 Location: Cambridge, MA

Hi TbOne,

Thanks very much for the response. I googled my problem by looking for the message I get upon bootup: "ERROR: problem starting needed services. "netmount" was not started". Some posts pointed to hotplug and coldplug and I emerged and rc-updated them (to default and boot respectively). I thought this would solve the problem but they did not.

So I would like to try what you suggested. I had emerged dhcpcd from LiveCD during the installation so I dont think I need to do so again. But I am not sure how to "enable support for my network card in the kernel". I booted using the LiveCD and did a lspci - my network card shows up as:
0000:00:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Linksys Network Everywhere Fast Ethernet 10/100 model NC100 (rev 11)
I am unsure what to do next - how do I get the "module" from LiveCD and "build it into the kernel"?

I would appreciate any and all help.
Thanks,
akb

Zuti · Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 11:39 pm Post subject:

I think (but I'm not sure) your Linksys driver is called 'natsemi'.

Enable the module in the kernel:

akbhargava · n00b Joined: 21 Feb 2005 Posts: 5 Location: Cambridge, MA

Hi Zuti,

It seems the module is tulip - based on what the livecd says.

However I cant seem to get it installled on my system - even after rebuilding the kernel. It never shows up under /lib/modules/.... So I cannot even update /etc/modules.conf

Am really confounded - I just dont know what to do at this point.

akb

akbhargava · n00b Joined: 21 Feb 2005 Posts: 5 Location: Cambridge, MA

Hi all,

Thanks alot for help from everyone. Based on that help and trawling the web I did 3 things:

- emerged coldplug
- emerged hotplug
The system still did not work after this and I realized that neither the loadable module was present nor was the net driver support compiled into the kernel. So
- I rebuilt the kernel including a number of Eth 10/100 drivers (since I dont know which one is applicable to my Eth card)

The system is up and running now and booting without any errors and successfully obtaining its IP, DNS etc via DHCP.

I am still curious if I need hotplug and/or coldplug? Both? One? Neither?

Thanks,
akb

loki99 · Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 2:21 pm Post subject:

you need both!

concerning cflags take a look here and concerning use-flags this might be helpfull.

kimchi_sg · Advocate Joined: 26 Nov 2004 Posts: 2969