Netgear GA311 (RealTek 8169 chipset) PCI network card and fc5

[Rick Stevens]

On Thu, 2006-09-28 at 16:49 +0100, Greg Frith wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
> I'm setting up a reasonably old PC with FC5 to use primarily as a test
> server for web development.  A few days ago i installed FC5 and spent
> 2 days trying to configure a wireless network card.  Having finally
> compiled the kernel with the additional drivers for the wireless card
> i got it up and running and everything was fine.  The box was hidden
> away in a corner (where my partner couldn't see it) and all was good.
> This morning however the hard disk went in the machine, so i had to
> purchase a new disk and start all over again.
> 
> 
> So my present situation:  Not wanting to go through the pane of
> setting up a wireless card again, i thought I'd save myself a great
> deal of hassle and put a standard wired ethernet card in.  So i did, a
> Netgear GA311 which i believe uses the Realtek 8169 chip set.  I'd
> already checked online and everyone reported this card as working
> hassle free under fedora.  But not for me.  On boot I see the message:
> 
> 
> r8169 device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialisation
> 
> 
> I get the same message if i do ifup eth0.  ifconfig -a does not list
> eth0.
> 
> 
> Using the GUI tool Network Manager the device can be seen under
> hardware.
> 
> 
> So the network card not working is the first problem, any thoughts
> gratefully received.
> 
> 
> In order to try and fix this i have downloaded linux drivers from the
> Realtek site.  To install i need the kernel source, so i also
> downloaded kernel-devel-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.i686.rpm.  When i try to
> install this rpm i get:
> 
> 
> -> rpm -Uvh kernel-devel-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.i686.rpm
> error: cannot create %sourcedir /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES.

You must be root to do the "rpm -Uvh" (I'd recommend "rpm -ivh").  Also
note that the "kernel-devel" RPM is NOT the kernel source RPM.  It is
only the kernel headers..and is usually enough to build most 3rd party
drivers.



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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-            Beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers            -
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