Problem with NON-Wireless network card

[Nigel Henry]

On Friday 20 July 2007 20:04, Steven J. Brown (NY) wrote:
> Andy Green wrote:
> > Somebody in the thread at some point said:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Since I updated the kernel on my Dell Inspiron 8600 notebook running FC6
> >> to release 2.6.22.1-15.fc6, my wired network card, a BroadCom BCM4401
> >
> > I think this device is meant to be handled by a module called "b44".
> > confirm first that it isn't all actually fine
> >
> > ifconfig -a | grep eth0
>
> ifconfig -a | grep eth
>
> 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401 100Base-T (rev
> 01) 02:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4309 802.11a/b/g
> (rev 02)
>
> Looks OK.
>
> > and
> >
> > lsmod | grep b44
> >
> > If b44 isn't in the lsmod result, try
> >
> > modprobe b44 ; dmesg | tail
> >
> > to see if that brings any joy.
>
> b44 is in the lsmod result.
>
> > -Andy
>
> I tried to add a device in the network configuration utility with a
> static IP address but this did not work.  Also, when I activated a
> single device, multiple devices would be marked activated, even after
> receiving a 'Cannot activate' message.
>
> Under the kernel that does work, three devices appear in the config
> utility (eth1, eth0.bak and eth0) with eth0 as ethernet and the other 2
> as wireless (not sure why).
>
> Under the kernel that does NOT work, one time there were 5 devices
> another only 2.  One time I could add a device with the correct
> hardware, another time the correct hardware was not selectable.
> Something really screwy going on here.  Hopefully another kernel update
> will fix it.
>
> --
> *Steven J. Brown*

Hi Steven. Personally I'd wait and see if the next kernel update fixes the 
problem, and in the meantime use the kernel that works ok for your NIC.

Incidentally, where did you get the 2.6.22.1-15.fc6 kernel? The latest kernel 
on F7 on my other machine only shows 2.6.21-1.3228.fc7, and I'm on FC2 on the 
machine I'm posting from, but looking at FC6's /boot on the same machine (and 
I havn't updated FC6 for a couple of weeks) the latest kernel I have is 
2.6.20-1.2948.fc6. Just interested.

Could you post the output of /etc/modprobe.conf. It would be interesting to 
see if the ethernet card, and the wireless card are there. I ask because I 
have had more than one audio device detected by Alsa, and have had to set 
options lines so that they are loaded in the correct order.

For example on F7 my ethernet driver shows up in /etc/modprobe.conf as.
alias eth0 8139too

Now I only have one NIC on each of my two machines, but perhaps you can set 
options lines also if you have multiple network cards. something like 
perhaps.

alias eth0 b44
options b44 index=0

And if the wireless drivers are also there, set them to index=1

There's also a line you can put in /etc/modprobe.conf to prevent drivers being 
loaded (your wireless ones for instance), but I'm darned if I can remember 
it. I know it starts with "install" (without the double quotes), but can't 
remember the rest of the line. 

Any help folks on that one?

Nigel.