# NetGear NIC's Where do I get drivers for such beasts??

## senectus

I'm after drivers for a NetGear FA311 and a FA310tx

Can someone help?

Thanks

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## Kabuto

Sometimes it can be tricky finding the right driver as it might be a driver for the chipset.  An easy was is to boot off the LiveCD and do a lsmod and see what drivers it autofound.  Ex. My Linksys uses the Tulip driver.

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## NeddySeagoon

Kabuto, 

The FA310tx uses the Tulip driver thats advertised as the Digital 21040 Tulip driver in the kernel config.

Try the natsemi driver for the 311.

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## GaryMercer

My FA311 uses the National Semiconductor driver that's in the kernel.

EDIT : Oops didn't read the last post properly, sorry.

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## senectus

 *Kabuto wrote:*   

> Sometimes it can be tricky finding the right driver as it might be a driver for the chipset.  An easy was is to boot off the LiveCD and do a lsmod and see what drivers it autofound.  Ex. My Linksys uses the Tulip driver.

 

For some reason it didn't find any drivers for these two cards...   :Mad: 

And I can't seem to load the ones that have been suggested..

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## NeddySeagoon

senectus,

PLug the cards into your system, run lspci and post the results.

You need to  *Quote:*   

> emerge pciutils

  if you dont have lspci yet.

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## senectus

The two lines that look like the right info are:

 *Quote:*   

> 00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller
> 
> 00:0d.0 Ethernet Controller: Lite-On Communications Inc LNE100TX (rev 20)

 

which to me looks very much like what was suggested up above..

Why is it saying that it can't find the modules??

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## NeddySeagoon

senectus,

Yes. Thats the right two lines and it confirms that the drivers you need are tulip and natsemi.

What did you do by way of rebuilding the kernel with these modules available?

You only need yo go into the configuration for the running kernel, choose these modules and do 

```
make modules

make modules_install

modprobe natsemi

modprobe tulip
```

What can go wrong?

You configure and build modules for some other kernel. If you did the whole build, with built in, you forgot to mount /boot, to name a few.

The modules will be somewhere in /lib/modules/<kernel_ver> and its branches. They will be called tulip.ko and natsemi.ko fo 2.6 kernels

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## senectus

ahh I probably should have mentioned this earlier..

I did this install:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=133711&highlight=glis

actually now I think about it, it kinda makes sense that the modules are missing.. the live CD didn't didn't detect them so why should it be compiled..

Ok the next question is, if I go through and do a make menuconfig alter the kernel a bit, compile the modules I need. is it still the same process as a normal install??

I mostly ask because I don't understand what "initrd" is.. how its generated and why I have one..

perhaps now I'm in the wrong section and should take these Q's to the "install" forum??

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## NeddySeagoon

senectus, 

initrd is a home for modules that the kernel needs for booting. It lets you have things like the filesystem module for the root filesystem as a module. Since you always need that module, you may as well build it in. I suppose its useful for general purpose kernels.

You can do the commands I suggested to add modules to the system. You do not need to mess with bzImage or initrd when you add modules.

If you originally used genkernel, I would be surprised if the modules are missing, since it tends to build anything and everything as a module. What you are doing is a bit like configuring a kernel the hard way but you only need to check/change two settings.

If yo have X running use make xconfig rather than make menuconfig.

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## senectus

I think I need to read more on the idea of initrd.

I never used genkernel I copied the kernel that the liveCD created as per the instructions.

which is probably why I don't have a /usr/src/linux  and why when I do "make modules" I get :

 *Quote:*   

> make: *** No rule to make target 'modules'. Stop.

 

I think I'm going to emerge the kernel source and do that bit by hand. (and get rid of the initrd) It shouln't be too hard to do that (I hope).

btw Those commands you mentioned give me this error:

 *Quote:*   

> modprobe: QM_MODULES: Function not implamented
> 
> modprobe: QM_MODULES: Function not implamented
> 
> modprobe: Can't locate module tulip

 

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## NeddySeagoon

senectus,

/usr/src/linux is a symbolic link to the kernel source tree. Its essential for allowing things that need to build against the kernel, to do so without knowing the real name to the kernel source.

Since your system is working, install a newly built for source kernel alongside the kernel you already have.  Then if your new kernel is broken, you can still boot the old one.

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## senectus

looks like I missed an important step somewhere 

I copies /mnt/cdrom/distfiles/* to  /usr/portage/distfiles

then compiled a new kernel with modules and hey presto the modprobe worked perfectly.. 

Thanks for your help buddy  :Smile: 

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## martoni

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> Kabuto, 
> 
> The FA310tx uses the Tulip driver thats advertised as the Digital 21040 Tulip driver in the kernel config.
> 
> Try the natsemi driver for the 311.

 

I've never had any problems with this card before, and have run it as Tulip under Red Hat for years. However, the suggestion above doesn't work with all FA310TX cards. For those stuck using the non-functional 2104x driver and tearing their hair out - try the next driver (in 2.6 kernel) 2114x. This compiles as a "tulip" driver (hint: do a lsmod from a LiveCD)  and works well.

I also put the line 

```
tulip
```

in /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6

Not sure it's strictly necessary but it says so in the docs.

/M.

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## flickerfly

I wonder why no one mentioned a simple 'cat /proc/pci'. It'll tell you what chipset you need.

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