# Fritzcard DSL SL support

## SimonKellett

What is not (easily) found by doing a search on these forums is how to support AVM Fritzcard DSL SL cards.

I only found out *after* upgraded from kernel 2.4.20 to 2.6.9 and hacking around to get my card to work that the fcdsl ebuild (now) supports all (or at least most) Fritzcards.

So my tip is that if you have any Fritzcard (DSL, DSL SL, DSL2, DSL USB, DSL SL USB) then uses this ebuild. But you do need a 2.6 Kernel.

Regards, Simon

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## funky1234

OK, my uptime is now over 20 hours with permanent load on the Fritz Card so i think it could be stable now. I'm running a system with kernel-2.6.11-r11, gcc 3.4.3 and nptl and a Fritz Card DSL SL. I've installed capi4k-utils-20050509, fcdsl-2.6.20.7-r5 and ppp-2.4.2-r10. Configured everything (not for the first time i'm doing this) and everything worked perfectly on the first run. Trinity, the computer i'm talking about, provided internet access for my LAN for about 5 hours and then i got a kernel panic. It was not the same oops like here https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=275028 because i have 1024@768 framebuffer and i haven't seen all of it but it ended with a, too:

 *Quote:*   

> Kernel panik - not syncing : Fatal exeption in interrupt

 

I have recompiled the kernel with different options, recompiled capi, tried to fiddle around with the ppp config and of course i searched the forums and the web, read all about the patches that are around for the fcdsl modules. All in all i reproduced this kernel panic five times, allwas after an uptime of 4-6 hours and permanent traffic on the fritz card. In the meantime i read through all the patches, compared them with the original driver.c and decided to recompile the fcdsl module with the different patches. Funny,  :Very Happy:   .... i had a while to find out that the diffs don't patch because the patch already get's applied when doing a ebuild /..../...fcdsl...... unpack. Well, so i decided to recompile the original driver.c without any patches applied and now i have a uptime of almoust 21 hours while Azureus was pretty busy all the time.

Could it be that the patch breaks the fcdslsl module, did anybody else experience problems with the SL version of the card ?

First i just wanted to post my experince like this. If somebody had similar problems or someone would like to track down this bug i'll take the time to collect all the information about my system, kernel options, revision of the fritz card itself ..... etc.

thanks ... funky

*edit* .... btw, it's a non SMP kernel.

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## genstef

Can you please also try out with a 2.6.12 kernel?

Oh, and it would be nice to know if it is stable even after some days .. because when I had a fcdslsl here it crashed every few days no matter wether I used the patch or not.

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## funky1234

Damned, again  :Crying or Very sad: 

I had an uptime of more than 24 hours this time, but just a few minutes ago i had to reboot that damned thing again. I've seen the oops only two times with the five crashes i had with the patched driver.c. Three times the screen just went blank and stayed blank. This time sadly again so i still don't have the whole oops output and i can't even compare it with the one with patched driver.c.

This fritz card REALLY makes me angry. I have an old fcdsl ... no SL, no 2 ... in my old server running suse 8.2 and kernel 2.4 something. I never really fixed the probs i had with this card, the old server regularly crashed after an uptime of 8-20 days, so in the end i fixed this problem with a cronjob that rebooted that box after 5 days. Now the new system has a brandnew fcdslsl with bleeding edge versions and gentoo (<-i LOVE it) but that damned fritzcard is still buggy as hell.  :Evil or Very Mad: 

Sorry ... had to vent out a bit  :Embarassed: 

I'll try kernel 2.6.12 ... probably i'll do it tomorrow, will see if i find the time today. I'm migrating all my stuff and my services to the new servers, the old ones really asked for retirement, so i'm pretty busy on all ends at once. Good practice in multitasking  :Smile: 

Thanks for the quick reply ... funky

*edit* 

hmmm, should we perhaps continue in german in the original threat i mentioned in my first posting or should i open perhaps another threat in the german forums ? I think the fritz cards are only available in germany, switzerland and austria. And this posting is in "Networking & Security" instead of "Kernel & Hardware".

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## funky1234

I couldn't go to bed without trying it, so i compiled gentoo-sources 2.6.12-r1 yesterday, recompiled fcdsl .... ebuild but it's still the one i've modified and removed the patch. right now i have an uptime of 11 hours. I'll open a bottle of champagne when i stay up for 30 days  :Smile: 

I'll keep you informed....

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## funky1234

Bummer  :Sad: 

Trinity made 4 days uptime with a loaded fcdslsl module. I had traffic on the dsl line almoust all the time but just a half hour ago i had another crash. My screen got blanked, too. No information in logfiles, nothing. I could try to compile the module with the patch and see how long it will work with 2.6.12-r1.

Anybody some ideas ? Please, before i throw the card out of the window  :Confused:   .... How about you Simon ? are you still here from time to time ? Does your fcdslsl work ??

regards ... funky

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## genstef

I guess its a problem with AVMs drivers, we should complain to them ..

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## funky1234

Wasn't around for a while, was redoing my office and painting some furniture ....

... Anyway, perhaps we have another chance. I downloaded the source rpm for fcdsl from suse 9.3 and did a quick diff. It looked like they changed some more files. I'll have a look into this and try if it will work. Then i'll start bugging AVM, it's definately a problem with their drivers.

I'm kinda surprised that nobody is posting here about similar problems. I found quite some information on the net about the fcdsl* drivers to be unstable but no real solutions. Is nobody running the Fritz Card 24/7 in a dedicated firewall/gateway or did everybody here give up and trow it out of the window ??  :Smile: 

How are the experiences with other fritzcards ?? would be interesting to know before i start writing to AVM.

thanks, funky

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## genstef

well .. AVM has an update with 64bit support for most of the fcdsl cards on its ftp, might be interesting to try it out.

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## funky1234

Mmm, i have a P4, so no 64bit cpu. But perhaps the changes suse made found a way back to AVM, i've downloaded the source rpm from suse a while ago and made a quick diff, back then there was nothing new on AVM ftp. I was busy doing other things, so it was lying around for almoust a month. Theres a new file dated 7 july 2005 on the AVM ftp server for linux, not linux_64. I haven't compiled the suse stuff yet, something different came up yesterday so i'll give the sources from AVM a try.

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## pi314

if it still matters: I'm currently stuck at gentoo.2.6.11-r7 due to some kernel panics with 11-r11 and complete hangups with 12-r?. Funky1234 if you still have trouble, then maybe you should test the older kernel... also as soon as I'm back home so that I have physical access to the server I might try an update (there was a new fcdsl ebuild that hopfefully fixes some stuff).

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## Fiesch

Just wanted to bump this thread - i have the same freezes, using the gentoo-sources 2.6.14-r2,

fcdsl 2.6.30 (from portage) capi4k-utils 20050509 (from portage) ppp 2.4.2-r15, SMP disabled

the freezes occur in non-uniform delays and appear to be related to the current network load.

As i have put far more time into it already than i probably should I'm thinking about switching to

a different brand since avm appearantly doesn't care much for linux users.

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## SimonKellett

My PCI DSL SL is still working fine: however I only have my machine switched on when I am using it, so no long term problem would be revealed (I certainly have <24 hour uptimes !!).

I can only suggest:

- I see from you first post that you Google'd round (in English or German ?): is this a general Linux/AVM problem, is it Gentoo only, or are you the only one with this problem ? do Windows user have the same problem ?

- hardware problem with the card

- you could try the latest SUSE (I am not sure if the AVM drivers come with the OpenSUSE 10.0 ?)

- perhaps this card is a cheap and chearful one for low usage (time/volume) home users (like me). Maybe you need a real router !!

If you like I can post my exact s/w and h/w versions later; I am at work now !!

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## Fiesch

*g* actually...

- This is a general Linux (gentoo) problem, the only drivers shipped for linux by avm are for Suse 8-9, with the option to compile for other distros.

Windows users don't have the same problem, the windows drivers are ok

- It's a software Problem. AVM is the biggest DSL Card distributor in germany aside from the german telekom, they have been on business for quite some time so you can expect the card to be ok

- I really don't want to get back to suse, i tried it years ago and am glad it's gone

- The card is part of a real router (dedicated headless Linux router). I am trying to switch to it from a "real" zyxel router because that isn't  providing enough open connections for my shared line (18 users)

The card is always working fine for me when all i do is browse around but as soon as my shared aMule and bittorent for the users go online it's approximately 1 to 2 hours to a complete freeze of the router forcing me to cold-reboot.

This is probably a cache / buffer issue but since AVM decided to provide only a small part of their code as open source we might never know..

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## pi314

hmm, damn drivers... still playing around with them sometimes (currently I do;-)

If someone is still playing with it - the following versions did give me a stable internet connection:

ppp-2.4.3-r9

linux-2.6.12-gentoo-r10

capi4k-utils-20050509

fcdsl-2.6.20.7-r5

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