# Broadcom BCM57788 unable to work [Solved]

## wpkzz

Hello fellow gentooers, it is me again asking for help.

I am installing gentoo in a computer around 5 years old, a Pentium Core 2 Dell Desktop with an ethernet device detected by

lspci as:

Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM57788 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe rev 01

I cannot seem to make it work. The kernel version is 3.17.7, and I have tried the following, with no 

success.

a) compile bnx2x and tg3 as modules, load either one with /etc/conf.d/modules

b) compile both of them in-kernel or only one. 

Strangely, when I use modprobe to load tg3 it doesn't complain, but it doesn't show it with lsmod.

The same goes for bnx2x. But if i search for the modules with 

find /lib/modules/3.17whatever/ -type f -iname "*.ko" -or -iname "*.o"

they do not show up (in either compilation method).

Most of the pages of instructions that I found are for relative old kernels (around 2.6!).

The messages from startup and openrc don't seem to tell nothing wrong..

Thanks in advanceLast edited by wpkzz on Fri Jan 16, 2015 4:56 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## Logicien

Did you check the dmesg output? The tg3 module need firmware files to be install in the root partition. Than they can be load by the module. If you put tg3 in the kernel, it will need the firmware files being in too.

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## charles17

 *wpkzz wrote:*   

> Hello fellow gentooers, it is me again asking for help.
> 
> I am installing gentoo in a computer around 5 years old, a Pentium Core 2 Dell Desktop with an ethernet device detected by
> 
> lspci as:
> ...

 Would you mind showing us your output of  *Quote:*   

> # lspci -k

 and *Quote:*   

> # ifconfig -a

 

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## wpkzz

Hi charles17: 

Here's the output of the suggested commands:

From lspci -k (only the relevant line, i guess):

```

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM57788 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 01)

   Subsystem: Dell Device 043e

```

From lsmod:

```

Module                  Size  Used by

ntfs                  184606  0 

nouveau              1182076  1 

cfbfillrect             3786  1 nouveau

cfbimgblt               2079  1 nouveau

wmi                     7683  1 nouveau

video                  12654  1 nouveau

fbcon                  37260  76 

cfbcopyarea             3230  1 nouveau

bitblit                 4809  1 fbcon

softcursor              1277  1 bitblit

font                    7332  1 fbcon

tileblit                1989  1 fbcon

ttm                    59694  1 nouveau

drm_kms_helper         61052  1 nouveau

fb                     53166  6 fbcon,drm_kms_helper,nouveau,softcursor,tileblit,bitblit

fbdev                    774  2 fb,fbcon

```

From ifconfig -a:

```

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536

        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0

        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>

        loop  txqueuelen 0  (Local Loopback)

        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0

        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

sit0: flags=128<NOARP>  mtu 1480

        sit  txqueuelen 0  (IPv6-in-IPv4)

        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0

        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

```

Logicien, i did emerged the package sys-kernel/linux-firmware and it complained that it was going to owervrite some files, in particular i remember that one of them looked like tg3.bin or something of the sort. 

Thanks for the attentions!

wpkzz

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## charles17

According to your lspci -k and ifconfig -a, you're still missing the correct kernel driver.  Are you getting  *Quote:*   

> $ grep -i tigon3 /usr/src/linux/.config
> 
> CONFIG_TIGON3=y

 

Are you getting any output from dmesg like this? *Quote:*   

> $ dmesg | grep 03:00.0
> 
> (Of course, this output is from mine)
> 
> [    0.153052] pci 0000:02:0e.0: [14e4:169c] type 00 class 0x020000
> ...

 

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## wpkzz

I think I was missing some other modules. It seems that even though tg3 can be compiled without also compiling pptp, it needs it to work. I discovered that dependency using systemrescuecd and cheking its lsmod output. So I just located those modules in the menuconfig for the kernel, compiled them as modules (pptp and pppox), put them into /etc/conf.d/modules list, and now it works. 

Thanks for the help!

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