# I'm a newbie, Help!

## guy4286

Hey, I installed Gentoo on my Dell 8100 Inspiron and I can't get my networking to work. It works fine when I boot with the liveCD. I think I'm not setting something correctly in the kernel configuration. I have the 3com mini pci 10/100 card. Any suggestions? Thanks!

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## guy4286

I meant, "INcorrectly", of course.

-Mike

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## slartibartfasz

boot from the cd, look at the output of 'dmesg | grep -i eth' and 'lsmod' to find out what drivers are used - then recompile your kernel with the driver...

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## guy4286

Ok. I made sure I compiled the correct drivers with the kernel. Here is the error that I am getting when I boot:

Bringing eth0 up...

Failed to bring eth0 up

ERROR: Problem starting needed services.

            "netmount" was not started.

Also- if I do a dmesg I see this

eth0: Could not reserve IRQ 10

Thanks for your help!

-Mike

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## puggy

 *guy4286 wrote:*   

> Ok. I made sure I compiled the correct drivers with the kernel. Here is the error that I am getting when I boot:
> 
> Bringing eth0 up...
> 
> Failed to bring eth0 up
> ...

 

Try disabling ACPI in your kernel. 

Note: Be aware though that I think without ACPI your fans will just go full throttle etc.

Perhaps see if it works without ACPI then go from there.

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## guy4286

hmm, well I checked my kernel and ACPI is already disabled. It doesn't look like I need it though.... any other suggestions? Or should I enable ACPI?

Also, should I try using the kernel config that comes on the liveboot cd?

Thanks!

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## puggy

Try booting with the additional parameer 

```
noapic
```

added to your kernel. Have you definitley got support for your network compiled into the kernel? Do you have your mini-pci support compiled into your kernel? Have you tried any other mini-pc cards?

Puggy

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## christsong84

do a lsmod from the CD...you will see what modules you'll need...then compile that module into the kernel...you might (not sure) need to add the module name (3c50x I think) to your /etc/modules.autoload file

My Inspiron 8100 works just fine.

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## guy4286

yeah I tried the noapic thing and it didn't work.

Also, I have the 3c59x driver built into my kernel. I don't need to load the module.

Still the dang networking is not working!

Help!  :Smile: 

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## slartibartfasz

 *guy4286 wrote:*   

> Also- if I do a dmesg I see this
> 
> eth0: Could not reserve IRQ 10

 

did u try both, APIC and ACPI? see puggy's post...

try to disable Plug&Pray in your BIOS. if u can, move the card to another slot.

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## guy4286

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> did u try both, APIC and ACPI? see puggy's post... 
> 
> 

 

I disabled both. Apic I disabled via grub at boot time, and acpi is actually already disabled in my kernel, so I figured there was nothing to do there.

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## puggy

 *guy4286 wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   
> 
> did u try both, APIC and ACPI? see puggy's post... 
> 
>  
> ...

 

Just out of curosity, try booting with "noacpi noapic" on your kernel line. 

Puggy

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## guy4286

Well I've tried everything you guys have mentioned so far and it still says that it failed to bring eth0 up.

Couple bits of information:

I'm on DSL, there's four other guys in my apartment and we all are connected through a router. Our IPs are all DHCP.

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## puggy

 *guy4286 wrote:*   

> Well I've tried everything you guys have mentioned so far and it still says that it failed to bring eth0 up.
> 
> Couple bits of information:
> 
> I'm on DSL, there's four other guys in my apartment and we all are connected through a router. Our IPs are all DHCP.

 

What is in your /etc/conf.d/net file?

Puggy

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## guy4286

puggy: I checked the /etc/conf.d/net file and it had a bunch of stuff, all of which was commented out with #'s, except for two lines. One line more towards the top said:

```

iface_eth0="192.168.1.103 broadcast 192.168.0.255 netmask 255.255.255.0"

```

the second line that was a couple lines down said:

```

iface_eth0="dhcp"

```

I'm not sure if either of these are correct. I'm assuming that I need to enter in the correct IP addressses for the first line, how do I know what the addresses should be? DHCP assigns stuff dynamically so what purpose do these addresses serve?

Thanks for your help!

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## devon

 *guy4286 wrote:*   

> I'm not sure if either of these are correct. I'm assuming that I need to enter in the correct IP addressses for the first line, how do I know what the addresses should be? DHCP assigns stuff dynamically so what purpose do these addresses serve?

 

You can either assign the IP address yourself (first line), or use DHCP to get the address automatically (second line). Put a "#" in front of the first line and do "/etc/init.d/net.eth0 restart". Then you will use DHCP to get your IP address from your DSL router.

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## Dracnor

are you compiling the drivers into the kernel or compiling as modules?  

i've also heard that will some dell laptops you need to exclude certain ranges and include others -- that may be the source of the issue dealing with not being able to assign the card an IRQ.

bdp

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## guy4286

tried commenting out the first line... still not luck.

is there something I have to do to tell it to refresh from the router or does it just automatically do this when I do the "net.eth0 restart"?

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## guy4286

dracnor: the driver is compiled into the kernel.

About what you said with the IRQ: I've considered this but how to I fix it?

-Mike

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## puggy

The IRQ is something you might be able to fix in your BIOS.

Puggy

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## devon

 *guy4286 wrote:*   

> is there something I have to do to tell it to refresh from the router or does it just automatically do this when I do the "net.eth0 restart"?

 

The restart should pull the IP address from your router using DHCP.

I looked over both the threads and didn't see if you resolved your IRQ problem in dmesg. Are you still getting that? I know puggy said to check the BIOS.

Some links to check out also:

http://www.linux-laptop.net/

http://vergil.chemistry.gatech.edu/~park/dell.html

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board?board.id=sw_linux&page=3

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## wire

If originally your kernal was compiled without the support for the card and than you recomplled it than maybe after:

# make dep && make clean bzImage modules modules_install

you forgot to:

#mount /boot

before:

# cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot

-kai

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## guy4286

Devon: no I never fixed the issue with the IRQ that dmesg shows. I looked through the bios and there was nothing that I could see for changing IRQ's. I'll check out those links....

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## puggy

 *guy4286 wrote:*   

> Devon: no I never fixed the issue with the IRQ that dmesg shows. I looked through the bios and there was nothing that I could see for changing IRQ's. I'll check out those links....

 

I think to get to the IRQ stuff you might have to disable something or take something off auto mode. I can't remember, it's been ages since I've been in the bios.

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