# Quick help with network i hope

## Caesars727

Gentlemen, i have been trying to install Gentoo on my Laptop (hp pavilion xt178) for 3 mo now. I couldnt get my network to work, even to begin the install. Now, i used the new version 1.4_rc4, and the install went perfect, except for the fact that now after my fisrt attempt to boot, my network is not detected. 

I followed the install guide to a T, and now i am confused as to what went wrong. I currently have Gentoo on my desktop, so i am familiar with the O/S. 

Please help me out, or at least where i can begin. Thank you very much, Alex.

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## r0cket-

 *Caesars727 wrote:*   

> Gentlemen, i have been trying to install Gentoo on my Laptop (hp pavilion xt178) for 3 mo now. I couldnt get my network to work, even to begin the install. Now, i used the new version 1.4_rc4, and the install went perfect, except for the fact that now after my fisrt attempt to boot, my network is not detected. 
> 
> I followed the install guide to a T, and now i am confused as to what went wrong. I currently have Gentoo on my desktop, so i am familiar with the O/S. 
> 
> Please help me out, or at least where i can begin. Thank you very much, Alex.

 

When you say the network isn't being detected, what do you mean exactly? Are you not able to connect to network resources, or are the drivers for your network card not even loading? What does ifconfig -a show?

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## Caesars727

*Bringing eth0 up...

SIOSCSIFADDR: No such device

eth0: unknown interface: No such device

SIOSSIFBRADDR: No such device

eth0: unknown interface: No such device

SIOSCSIFNETMASK: No such device

   *Failed to bring eth0 up                                             [ !! ]

*ERROR: Problem starting needed services.

*            "netmount" was not started.

* Starting vcron...                                                           [ ok ]

* Starting local...                                                             [ ok ]

Login:

This is the error i get when i select Gentoo from my grub menu (dual boot windows and gentoo)

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## Caesars727

Ifconfig -a

lo     Link encap:Local Loopback

        inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0

        UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTV:16436 Metric:1

        RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

        TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

        collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

        RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

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## r0cket-

 *Caesars727 wrote:*   

> Ifconfig -a
> 
> lo     Link encap:Local Loopback
> 
>         inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
> ...

 

Looks like the drivers for the NIC aren't loading, but the startup scripts are expecting the interface to be present, and thus you get those assorted errors for eth0 'no such device' from when the startup scripts tell the system to perform an action on eth0, which, as you can see from ifconfig -a, doesn't exist.

Do you know what kind of a card is in the system? If it's PCI, doing cat /proc/pci might give some information. You might try booting off the install CD again and finding the driver that it's loading for the card (sorting through the output of dmesg would be one way, but there's probably an easier way to do it).

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## Caesars727

I know it uses a natsemi module.   That is what was present during the install.

Now, lsmod produces nothing....

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## r0cket-

 *Caesars727 wrote:*   

> I know it uses a natsemi module.   That is what was present during the install.
> 
> Now, lsmod produces nothing....

 

modprobe natsemi might take care of it. Did you enable support for that NIC when you built the kernel?

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## Caesars727

modprobe natsemi

modprobe: Cant locate module natsemi

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## Caesars727

ok, just did a make menuconfig to check what i had enabled. and..

Under Main Menu --> Network device support --> Ethernet 10 or 100Mbit,  i scroll down and National Semiconductor DP8381x series PCI Ethernet support was not enabled.  

I think that is my problem, do you agree??

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## r0cket-

 *Caesars727 wrote:*   

> modprobe natsemi
> 
> modprobe: Cant locate module natsemi

 

Hmm. So when you built the kernel, did you enable support for that card? It may be a natsemi option, National Semiconductor, or possibly Netgear FA311 (which looks like one of the more popular cards that uses that module). I'm not sure, but if you didn't, you *may* be able to do

```

# cd /path/to/linux/sources

# make menuconfig

     enable driver as a Module, save config

# make modules

```

Not sure if you'd need to do a make clean and make dep before the make modules or not. There's probably a less obtuse way to go about compiling just that module, but I'm pretty new to this too, so someone else will have to field that question.

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## r0cket-

 *Caesars727 wrote:*   

> ok, just did a make menuconfig to check what i had enabled. and..
> 
> Under Main Menu --> Network device support --> Ethernet 10 or 100Mbit,  i scroll down and National Semiconductor DP8381x series PCI Ethernet support was not enabled.  
> 
> I think that is my problem, do you agree??

 

Yup, that's probably the problem.

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## r0cket-

 *Caesars727 wrote:*   

> ok, just did a make menuconfig to check what i had enabled. and..
> 
> Under Main Menu --> Network device support --> Ethernet 10 or 100Mbit,  i scroll down and National Semiconductor DP8381x series PCI Ethernet support was not enabled.  
> 
> I think that is my problem, do you agree??

 

If those don't do the trick, there should be a driver source at http://www.scyld.com/network/ethercard.html.

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## Caesars727

Thanks a lot for the help.  I am recompiling my kernel from scratch and ill let you know if it all worked in about 15 minutes.

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## Caesars727

haha, success...i just enabled the natsemi module, and all is well.  

My only problem is now i have to do "dhcpcd" as soon as i log in to get the network up.  What should i do to get it to work at startup???

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## r0cket-

 *Caesars727 wrote:*   

> haha, success...i just enabled the natsemi module, and all is well.  
> 
> My only problem is now i have to do "dhcpcd" as soon as i log in to get the network up.  What should i do to get it to work at startup???

 

Edit /etc/conf.d/net and do the following

```

# Comment out your current iface_eth0= line and replace it with...

iface_eth0="dhcp"

# and, if need be, you may also want...

gateway="eth0/yourdefaultgateway"

```

Then run 'rc-update add net.eth0 default' and that should update it to pull everything from DHCP at startup.

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## bryon

I am also having trouble trying to figure out what kind of modem my IBM thinkpad has insatlled.  I know that I have a Intel Corp. : 82801 CAM (ICH3) PRO/100 VE (LOM) Ethernet.  At least that is what cool linux tells me when i conifgure it.  I am pretty sure that i just need to load the proper module.  I trited pcnet32, tulip and a few others and still ifconfig eth0 tells me that it can not be found?

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## r0cket-

 *bryon wrote:*   

> I am also having trouble trying to figure out what kind of modem my IBM thinkpad has insatlled.  I know that I have a Intel Corp. : 82801 CAM (ICH3) PRO/100 VE (LOM) Ethernet.  At least that is what cool linux tells me when i conifgure it.  I am pretty sure that i just need to load the proper module.  I trited pcnet32, tulip and a few others and still ifconfig eth0 tells me that it can not be found?

 

You'll probably want the eepro100 driver for that adapter. Not sure if there's an option in the kernel config for this, but there should be, otherwise it's probably available on Intel's website. Note as well that the adapter in question is an ethernet adapter, not a modem. You'll need to find a different driver to enable any modems installed.

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