# Marvel Yukon  sk98lin Gigabit ethernet controller

## JohnRus

Hello.

I have Marvel Yukon  sk98lin Gigabit ethernet controller. 

I have driver, sk98lin for this device.

When i try "modprobe sk98lin", no problems.

But! No one eth0 device was created.

All time i have "lo" device only....

What is this device, and how i can start my ethernet.

Thanks.

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## geko2004

Can you post an ifconfig -a output and lsmod.

It might help  :Smile: 

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## taurus

You need to add "sk98lin" (without the " ") in your /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6...  I have the exact ethernet card and it works just fine for me.

taurus

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## active

 *taurus wrote:*   

> You need to add "sk98lin" (without the " ") in your /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6...  I have the exact ethernet card and it works just fine for me.

 

IMHO this is quite unuseful because the ethX devices should become active with a modprobe.

For JohnRus: /var/log/{messages, syslog} should tell you some useful information

bye,

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## syg00

Might depend on the kernel level.

At 2.6.9-r13 I needed to load it as a a module, at 2.6.10 it's now a kernel option.

I run an onboard Yukon (ASUS P4P800-E), and had to change it for 2.6.10

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## JohnRus

I have 2.6.10 kernel.

No errors, no warnings in the log files.

ifconfig and ifconfig -a shows only "lo" loop back device...

I have Asus p5gd1 motherboard, on i915 chipset.

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## Apewall

Set it to <M> in your kernel, recompile and install the new kernel, then.

put the "sk98lin"your /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6

I couldn't get it to start normally in 2.6.10, i had to make it a module when i did it.

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## Ledg

I am having the same problem on my PowerBook G4.

I have Gentoo installed but my network card isn't working once installed.

I can not locate the module in the kernel... I have looked under drivers, network, 10/100 but can't find sk98lin anywhere... which module to I need to include to get sk98lin to load?

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## syg00

 *Ledg wrote:*   

> I can not locate the module in the kernel... I have looked under drivers, network, 10/100 but can't find sk98lin anywhere... which module to I need to include to get sk98lin to load?

 

Have a look under 1000 Mbit - I just had a look at my .config; CONFIG_SK98LIN=y

lsmod shows nothing.

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## Ledg

I found the module and compiled it, its now loading no problem at boot, however I still have the netmount error coming up!?

I have tried using coldplug - still does it.

I dont understand why netmount keeps failing?!

Any help would be appreciated

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## JohnRus

I have: sk98lin card,

i915 motherboard,

p4 2.8 prescott, HT enabled, SMP enabled

Kernel 2.6.10

On 2.6.9-rc1 kernel (from livecd) driver was compiled successfully.

On 2.6.10 with same config - not.

But on Mandrake linux on 2.6.10 was compiled succesfully too.

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## Ledg

So how would I go about installing the *.9 kernel ?

Is it on the Live CD?

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## OOZafle

look in your portage files for it, /usr/src/portage/...

the once you find it emerge the correct .ebuild should be like kernel-2.6.9-gentoo-r1.ebuild or somthing.

I don't know why you would want to downgrade though. I'm sure you'll get it working with that kernel

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## TBerrang

As it seems, there are muliple issues with the Marvell NIC's arround. A short look at kernel.org reveals:

 :Arrow:  http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3869

As stated here, all kernels from 2.6.7 - 2.6.10-rc3 are affected. The sk98lin moule of newer kernels should

work as expected.  :Laughing: 

So I don't see the point in "downgrading" any kernels, sorry. I installed gentoo with devkernel 2.6.9 and then

applied this:

 :Arrow:  http://syskonnect.com/syskonnect/support/driver/htm/sk9elin.htm

driver/patch. Since then my Marvell works like a charm. Hope this helps someone.

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## Decibels

I got mine to work without a problem on my harddrive, with a new motherboard 64bit. But cannot

get the network up with the 64 livecd. Doesn't detect it, so modprobe and setup, but still no go.

No errors reported when modprobing it on the 64 livecd either.  :Crying or Very sad: 

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## Xaid

Just wanted to say that on the latest stable kernel (2.6.11-r4) sk98lin has been deprecated and replaced by a newer driver named "skge", works like a charm so far, didnt have any problems with it, so if you're upgrading your kernel to >= 2.6.11-r4 then make sure you choose that driver when configuering the kernel, and change:

sk98lin in /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 to skge[/b] (unless you want to keep using the deprecated driver....).

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## Pyrran

Yeah I noticed sk98lin being marked as deprecated, being replaced by the skge driver... however...

after adding the new driver to the list of modules, editing my /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 file (replacing sk98lin with skge),

building and switching over to the new kernel (2.6.11-r4) - I can only get 100Mbit out of the new driver  :Sad: 

Whereas the old faithful sk98lin used to kick into gigabit no problem.

Kind of bugging as the machine in question is my "Jack Of All Trades" Server for the LAN  :Wink:   (RAID5, mail, Portage rsync, etc)

Anyway, hopefully a fix for this will appear in -r5  :Smile: 

In the meantime, I've switched back to the old driver, but I was wondering....

Anyone else having this problem?  Potential causes? places to look? etc?

Thx.  :Smile: 

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## Ein

I, too, have this problem.  Being the Linux noob I am, and just trying to get a version of Linux to actually be connectable to the internet is EXTREMELY frustrating.  Everything I've been reading seems terribly complicated, even for a nerd like me.

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## TBerrang

 *Pyrran wrote:*   

> <snipp!>
> 
> Anyone else having this problem?  Potential causes? places to look? etc?
> 
> 

 

Well, the problem is, that skge works, but is (still) a rather "generic" driver for the Marvell. So, if you want to use all your Marvell-features (like gigabit), you have to stick with sk98lin at the moment. This may change in futher releases of skge.

People with real problems using sk98lin are ecouraged to use the drivers from the Syskonnect-Homepage at:

http://www.syskonnect.com/syskonnect/support/driver/d0102_driver.html

This helped me out when using kernel 2.6.9. Perhaps it solves the problems of someone else too, plus, that drivers get updated quite frequently.

Cheers,

Torsten.

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## Decibels

Want to reiterate going to SysKonnect and getting the drivers. Fixed my problem. The one with

the kernel is crap (well, to be nice, maybe just outdated).

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## Pyrran

Thx for the interesting info.

Thought I'd drop a note to say the skge driver in 2.6.11-gentoo-r5 now appears to work fine - I'm now getting a gigabit connection (FD) to the LAN - and have now removed sk98lin from my startup, and i am once more a happy gentoo camper  :Very Happy:  (on the networking side anyway  :Wink:  )

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## Decibels

I was just told to try that one in the bug report I wrote on upgrading the kernel. Going to try it myself in a bit.

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## Decibels

Tried the skge and first boot it didn't work. Tried it again next day and worked. Been working since.

I did get a few errors during kernel compile on it. But doesn't seem to be affecting it.

By the way, the kernel was 2.6.11-gentoo-r5 from the gentoo-sources.

By the way, was having trouble with the Marvell Ethernet Controller in Win2k also. From Marvell's website

found the 8.20.10.3 version of the yk50x86.sys driver for Windows. That one has worked thru all my

testing. Booted, rebooted, powered off,... and all systems go so far.

Update: Skge at this time isn't better than the sk98lin  version   from syskonnect.com.

```
driver: sk98lin

version: 8.15.1.3 (01)
```

I found it had the same problem, just not as freq. If I booted an old RR4 Gentoo LiveCD, it doesn't dectect

the ethernet, so never loads. Bad thing is upon several reboots off harddrive, the skge will not start it again. Had to boot

to the sk98lin kernel I patched. 

Then also found when I booted off harddrive with kernel command 'noapic' it did the same thing, no ethernet and not upon

reboot either. Had to do the same thing, this time though I tested out the newer Marverll driver I got from their

site for Win2k. The ethernet came back up.

So, going back to sk98lin for the time being.

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## mlivingstone

 *JohnRus wrote:*   

> Hello.
> 
> I have Marvel Yukon  sk98lin Gigabit ethernet controller. 
> 
> I have driver, sk98lin for this device.
> ...

 

OK. Been there, done that. My Toshiba Tecra A3 uses the 88E8036 version of Marvell Yukon chip. As of 2.6.11-gentoo-r4 yesterday, I had it working by doing:

Goto www.sysconnect.com (from memory!) and go to their Gigabit ethernet Server adapter and download the version 8.15 .tgz file.

Unpack it somewhere on your harddisk. You will end up with a DriverInstall directory which will have (amongst others) a install.sh executable.

In your kernel, turn on the sk98lin option (yes, I know it says deprecated but skge is still a bit tooooo vanilla but you can leave it on too - makes no difference!) and make this kernel & modules. Goto DriverInstall and run install.sh. Choose either expert or use mode (I have done both and both work). Havent done patch menthod.

When it finishes, you should be able to see in ifconfig a working ethernet adaptor. 

Unfortunately I just borked my grub config so I can't give you actual keystrokes but the above should be close enough. 

HTH

MarkL

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## effbiai

I have the same problem with 2005.1 livecd. sk98lin is to old to recognize my Marvell nic. I've used this nic on other distros but i had to patch the kernel with drivers from skyconnect.. Anyway. How do i integrate that drivers to the kernel on this livecd? I mean.. i could use a nic to install gentoo  :Razz: 

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## mlivingstone

 *effbiai wrote:*   

> I have the same problem with 2005.1 livecd. sk98lin is to old to recognize my Marvell nic. I've used this nic on other distros but i had to patch the kernel with drivers from skyconnect.. Anyway. How do i integrate that drivers to the kernel on this livecd? I mean.. i could use a nic to install gentoo 

 

Sorry, I have no experience modifying LiveCDs. I have installed to HD and use it that way.

There is now some kernel level drivers but you still need to create a kernel and reboot it. 

Using the driver from Syskonnect, only the "Patch" method works at present which is what I use. 

Good Luck,

MarkL

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## amertner

I just wanted to add that this works for me too - nothing else seems to.  This is on a Hardened gentoo 2.6.14-r3, where my shiny new built-in network card now actually can communicate with things. Nice  :Smile: 

The older links have disappeared so it may be useful to have a new link.  This is where I found driver v8.31: http://www.skd.de/e_en/products/adapters/pcie_server/sk-9exx/software/linux/driver/install-8_31.tar.bz2

Thanks again!!

Allan

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## cfgauss

 *amertner wrote:*   

> I just wanted to add that this works for me too - nothing else seems to.  This is on a Hardened gentoo 2.6.14-r3, where my shiny new built-in network card now actually can communicate with things. Nice :)
> 
> The older links have disappeared so it may be useful to have a new link.  This is where I found driver v8.31: http://www.skd.de/e_en/products/adapters/pcie_server/sk-9exx/software/linux/driver/install-8_31.tar.bz2
> 
> 

 

I have successfully used the SysKonnect driver on my Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8053 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15) NIC for all kernels up until the newest, gentoo-sources-2.6.16. When I patch this kernel with either the 8.31 version (your link above) or my older 8.28 version I get a compile error when I compile the kernel.

Has anyone gotten this to work with gentoo-sources-2.6.16?

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## theklone

 *cfgauss wrote:*   

>  *amertner wrote:*   I just wanted to add that this works for me too - nothing else seems to.  This is on a Hardened gentoo 2.6.14-r3, where my shiny new built-in network card now actually can communicate with things. Nice 
> 
> The older links have disappeared so it may be useful to have a new link.  This is where I found driver v8.31: http://www.skd.de/e_en/products/adapters/pcie_server/sk-9exx/software/linux/driver/install-8_31.tar.bz2
> 
>  
> ...

 

The new driver (sky2) is now included in the vanilla kernel as of 2.6.16. It has worked fine for me so far.

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## mark_alec

Moved from Installing Gentoo to Kernel & Hardware.

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## My_World

The SKY2 driver gave me this error:

```

sky2 eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex, flow control both

NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out

sky2 transmit interrupt missed? recovered

NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out

```

That is after an eth0 up/down command.

It works for a while but as soon as the network load gets heavy (streaming video) it crashes. Will try the sysconnect drivers and see if it helps.

 :Razz: 

Forgot to add:

Used gentoo-sources-2.6.15-r7

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## My_World

Also get the compile errors as mentioned above:

```

Check kernel header version (Kernel:2.6.16-gentoo-r1 == Header:2.6.16-gentoo-r1)                      [   OK   ]

Check kernel functions (Changed: nothing)                                                             [   OK   ]

Compile the kernel (error)                                                                            [ failed ]

An error has occurred during the compile proces which prevented

the installation from completing.

Take a look at the log file install.log for more informations.

Installation of sk98lin driver module failed.

```

An the logfile:

```

+++ Compile the driver

+++ ====================================

make: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.16-gentoo-r1'

  Building modules, stage 2.

  MODPOST

make: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.16-gentoo-r1'

+++ Compiler error

```

This is on both the 2.6.15-r7 and 2.6.16-r1 gentoo-sources.

 :Sad: 

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## cfgauss

 *My_World wrote:*   

> Also get the compile errors as mentioned above:
> 
> ```
> 
> Check kernel header version (Kernel:2.6.16-gentoo-r1 == Header:2.6.16-gentoo-r1)                      [   OK   ]
> ...

 

I tried compiling sky2 into the kernel in 2.6.16-r2 gentoo-sources. It compiled OK but when I brought up eth0 with ifconfig I got a kernel panic! I then tried to patch the kernel with SysKonnect's sk98lin driver, version 8.31.2.3 (the current one) and got kernel compile errors.

sk98lin works fine with my 2.6.15-r7 gentoo-sources so I guess I'll have to stick with that for a while.

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## olof

I had the same problems with the sky2 driver and kernel 2.6.16 as mentioned above, and as others have noted the sk98lin patch from SysKonnect does not compile with the new kernel. However, I found a patch on the kernel mailing list that makes it compile ok, and so far it seems to work quite fine. The patch can be found at http://lkml.org/lkml/diff/2006/2/13/107/1, the full mail at http://lkml.org/lkml/fancy/2006/2/13/107. 

So if there is anyone else out there dying to try the new kernel but still wants a working sk98lin, now you can.

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## cfgauss

 *olof wrote:*   

> I had the same problems with the sky2 driver and kernel 2.6.16 as mentioned above, and as others have noted the sk98lin patch from SysKonnect does not compile with the new kernel. However, I found a patch on the kernel mailing list that makes it compile ok, and so far it seems to work quite fine. The patch can be found at http://lkml.org/lkml/diff/2006/2/13/107/1, the full mail at http://lkml.org/lkml/fancy/2006/2/13/107. 
> 
> So if there is anyone else out there dying to try the new kernel but still wants a working sk98lin, now you can.

 

After installing SysKonnect's 8.31.2.3 patch, I installed the patch above. Both patches installed correctly. And, for the first time, sk98lin compiled into the kernel without error from 2.6.16-r2 gentoo-sources. However the driver only drove my Marvell 88E8053 for a short time before malfunctioning.

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## olof

 *cfgauss wrote:*   

> After installing SysKonnect's 8.31.2.3 patch, I installed the patch above. Both patches installed correctly. And, for the first time, sk98lin compiled into the kernel without error from 2.6.16-r2 gentoo-sources. However the driver only drove my Marvell 88E8053 for a short time before malfunctioning.

 

I'm also using a Marvell 88E8053 and I have not experienced any problems so far. I haven't tested very much (I'm mostly on wireless) but at least it has lasted for an hour or so of rather heavy load (streaming video) with no problems at all. I'm using the suspend2-sources-2.6.16-r3.

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## cfgauss

 *olof wrote:*   

> I'm also using a Marvell 88E8053 and I have not experienced any problems so far. I haven't tested very much (I'm mostly on wireless) but at least it has lasted for an hour or so of rather heavy load (streaming video) with no problems at all. I'm using the suspend2-sources-2.6.16-r3.

 

With gentoo-sources-2.6.16-r3, installing the SysKonnect patch and the patch from the kernel list allows sk98lin to compile into the kernel but the NIC functions for only about 60 seconds. sky2 also compiles (with no patch) and lasts for about the same amount of time.

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