# Post-installation hardware issues

## Fubster

Hello, forumgoers.

 I've tried installing Gentoo on my Dell 4300S once before, but I ran into the same sort of errors I am having now and being unable to solve them, I gave up in favor of FreeBSD. Having used FreeBSD for quite some time, I've decided to give Gentoo another shot. Unfortunately, I seem to be getting the same errors. Before I continue, let me just say that I have followed the installation handbook verbatim, and I actually attempted a clean install twice before posting this, so I'm fairly confident that these were not careless errors on my part.

 My NIC card (an old Realtek RTL-8029(AS) ) will not work correctly, despite having all the neccicary drivers loaded (8139too and ne2k-pci), and the fact that it works in the livecd. This is a minor issue that I'm sure I can work through with a bit of help, because the only problem is that when I leave an empty net config file, dhcpcd hangs for a long time before spitting out an Error: "netmout" was not started, and eth0 is never started. When I try to assign the address manually (a configuration I prefer), eth0 comes up, my chosen address is assigned, but when I try to ping www.google.com or whatever, I get a "host not found" error.

 Unfortunately, I didn't have the presence of mind to ping an IP address or a networked machine to determine if the problem was DNS-related, but I have a feeling it has something to do with my DNSDOMAINNAME="no-ip.org". I'm not sure how Gentoo (or Linux, really) handles things like that. Under BSD, the host/domain scheme was far simpler (IMO), and I was able to assign my host/domain to <host>.no-ip.org (which obviously pointed to my computer). If I blundered the whole host/domain thing, could someone give a bit of insight as to how Gentoo deals with these values?

The network problem isn't my biggest problem, however. Sound is a problem that I cannot seem to work through. I have an onboard Intel AC'97 soundcard, and it refuses to work. When using the livecd, the console beeps are not broadcast over the speakers, they originate from the card itself. I don't know if this is normal or not, but it's also worth mentioning that ALSA would not load under the livecd. One of the primary factors in my switching from BSD to Linux was ALSA. I mean, when you're watching a movie and IM sounds have the potential to crash mplayer because of sound conflicts... damn.

Are there any documented issues with Intel's AC'97 series of soundcards? Is there some driver dependency that I am missing? Does ALSA have a tendancy fuck up for no reason like this? If so, is OSS a better alternative? Can you run both OSS and ALSA, and expect better performance? Which do you prefer? I really haven't the first clue when it comes to sound under Linux, so any info here would be news to me.

To bring it all to a nice full circle, my last problem is a video problem. I have an ATI Rage 128 Pro Ultra TF, and when I switch from one console to another, the screen will dim quite a bit. At first, I was using the aty128fb framebuffer. Thinking this might be the problem, I disabled framebuffering altogether (it was all done through grub.conf), yet the problem still persisted. I'm not fluent in framebuffering, bootsplashing, or what-have-you, so I might have overlooked something critical, or I might have just set it up improperly to begin with.

Gentoo is a very attractive option for me, because of the amazing configurability and the fact that you can keep your entire system up-to-date so easily. I'd really like to get Gentoo up and running just the way I like it, and I hope that someone has the answers I'm looking for.

Thanks,

-Fubster

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## dgaffuri

You're giving a lot of info but not enough details. Anyway.

 *Fubster wrote:*   

> My NIC card (an old Realtek RTL-8029(AS) ) will not work correctly, despite having all the neccicary drivers loaded (8139too and ne2k-pci), and the fact that it works in the livecd. This is a minor issue that I'm sure I can work through with a bit of help, because the only problem is that when I leave an empty net config file, dhcpcd hangs for a long time before spitting out an Error: "netmout" was not started, and eth0 is never started. When I try to assign the address manually (a configuration I prefer), eth0 comes up, my chosen address is assigned, but when I try to ping www.google.com or whatever, I get a "host not found" error.
> 
>  Unfortunately, I didn't have the presence of mind to ping an IP address or a networked machine to determine if the problem was DNS-related, but I have a feeling it has something to do with my DNSDOMAINNAME="no-ip.org". I'm not sure how Gentoo (or Linux, really) handles things like that. Under BSD, the host/domain scheme was far simpler (IMO), and I was able to assign my host/domain to <host>.no-ip.org (which obviously pointed to my computer). If I blundered the whole host/domain thing, could someone give a bit of insight as to how Gentoo deals with these values?

 

That seems definitely a DNS problem, but I don't think is related to your host and domain name. Are you sure you've  reported the correct DNS server addresses in /etc/resolv.conf?

 *Fubster wrote:*   

> The network problem isn't my biggest problem, however. Sound is a problem that I cannot seem to work through. I have an onboard Intel AC'97 soundcard, and it refuses to work. When using the livecd, the console beeps are not broadcast over the speakers, they originate from the card itself. I don't know if this is normal or not, but it's also worth mentioning that ALSA would not load under the livecd. One of the primary factors in my switching from BSD to Linux was ALSA. I mean, when you're watching a movie and IM sounds have the potential to crash mplayer because of sound conflicts... damn.
> 
> Are there any documented issues with Intel's AC'97 series of soundcards? Is there some driver dependency that I am missing? Does ALSA have a tendancy fuck up for no reason like this? If so, is OSS a better alternative? Can you run both OSS and ALSA, and expect better performance? Which do you prefer? I really haven't the first clue when it comes to sound under Linux, so any info here would be news to me.

 

No, it works well under ALSA. Try to follow this guide

 *Fubster wrote:*   

> To bring it all to a nice full circle, my last problem is a video problem. I have an ATI Rage 128 Pro Ultra TF, and when I switch from one console to another, the screen will dim quite a bit. At first, I was using the aty128fb framebuffer. Thinking this might be the problem, I disabled framebuffering altogether (it was all done through grub.conf), yet the problem still persisted. I'm not fluent in framebuffering, bootsplashing, or what-have-you, so I might have overlooked something critical, or I might have just set it up improperly to begin with.

 

I don't know much about that, but may you post the relevant kernel config options and the grub.conf contents?

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## Fubster

Unfortunately, I cannot provide any files verbatim, because I had to install windows as a temporary solution, as I have work I need to finish and I don't have time to wrestle with this at the moment. So, any configuration settings or error messages are paraphrased.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> That seems definitely a DNS problem, but I don't think is related to your host and domain name. Are you sure you've reported the correct DNS server addresses in /etc/resolv.conf? 

 

I copied my DNS information from the livecd, and it worked under the livecd. When I looked at my resolv.conf, I noticed an entry that was something like 

nameserver xx.xx.xx.xx

nameserver xx.xx.xx.xx

domain no-ip.org

which is what led me to believe that the problem might be my domain configuration. The "OVERRIDE" function in my /etc/conf.d/net config file also had me wondering. What should that be set to?

 *Quote:*   

> No, it works well under ALSA. Try to follow this guide 

 

I had my soundcard enabled in the kernel and had the modules configured to load at startup, yet when I cat /dev/sndstat, I got something like "Error: no such device". There were no console beeps, either.

 *Quote:*   

> I don't know much about that, but may you post the relevant kernel config options and the grub.conf contents?

  Following the root=/dev/hda3 entry in grub.conf, I believe I had video=aty128fb:1024x768. Are there things that I need to configure besides grub.conf in order to get it working?[/code]

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## dgaffuri

 *Fubster wrote:*   

> I copied my DNS information from the livecd, and it worked under the livecd. When I looked at my resolv.conf, I noticed an entry that was something like 
> 
> nameserver xx.xx.xx.xx
> 
> nameserver xx.xx.xx.xx
> ...

 

The domain name is in /etc/resolv.conf because if you query hostnames without domain it's appended. Doing no harm. The OVERRIDE variable is used for DHCP only. We need more info and some test to find out the problem.

 *Fubster wrote:*   

> I had my soundcard enabled in the kernel and had the modules configured to load at startup, yet when I cat /dev/sndstat, I got something like "Error: no such device". There were no console beeps, either.

 

What is /dev/sndstat? Did you run alsamixer to unmute the card?

 *Fubster wrote:*   

> Following the root=/dev/hda3 entry in grub.conf, I believe I had video=aty128fb:1024x768. Are there things that I need to configure besides grub.conf in order to get it working?

 I don't know anything about aty128fb, I'm using vesafb. And I've not even understood well which is the problem.   :Very Happy: 

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## systerfrida

Silly question perhaps...did you set a default gateway for your connection?

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## sonicbhoc

did you run alsaconf (or was it alsaconfig?) from a terminal? and make sure your sound modules - all of them - are in /etc/modules.autoload.d. (that means everything that starts with snd, and then add your card)

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## Fubster

None of those things were in the install guide (or if they are, they're way in the back) so I never got around to it. I'll try it on my next installation attempt.

Thanks, all.

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## sonicbhoc

maybe this could be your problem?

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-406997-highlight-.html

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## Fubster

I have fixed everything besides the sound problem.

I don't have an "alsaconf" command, and the bootmsg that ALSA gives is "No soundcard found", despite the fact that I have the modules autoload. The modules load *after* ALSA states that it can find no soundcard, so that might be it. When I get home, I'll give that a shot. Again, thanks to everyone who helped.

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## dgaffuri

Have you emerged alsa-utils?

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## nixnut

Moved from Installing Gentoo to Kernel & Hardware.

Postinstall hardware problems, so moved here

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## sonicbhoc

alsaconf runs only under root. If it doesn't work then, you may not have all of the alsa packages installed. Also, make sure alsa is in the correct runlevel, that could be screwing things up too.

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## Fubster

I fixed it.

It turns out that in order for alsaconf to work correctly, you need to have it in the kernel as a module rather than as a builtin function.

Thanks for the help, everyone!

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## dgaffuri

Glad to hear it. May you please edit the top post and add [solved] to the subject?

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