[NCLUG] Problem building kernel with Nvidia nic

[Michael Crosiar]

Sorry, meant to post this to the list :-<

--- Michael Crosiar <crosiarcm at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hey Warren,
> 
> > > 
> > > So, what is in the binary driver that I am
> > missing?
> > 
> > Slight confusion there...
> > 
> > The kernel has a built-in reverse-engineered
> driver,
> > named "forced eth". 
> > This is GPL open-source and I believe not
> officially
> > sponsored by NVIDIA 
> > (although they have submitted some patches to it,
> > e.g. for GigE support)
> 
> Ok, when I boot the new kernel I do see this with
> lsmod. There is actually another realtek nic in the
> computer that normally appears as eth1. What is
> happening is because it does not see eth0, it makes
> my
> realtek eth0, which fails DHCP - because there is no
> DHCP server on this eth. If I switch eth0/1 in my
> interfaces, then I can bring up eth0 successfully
> (the
> realtek) and ping a VOIP phone on that nic.
> 
> > I don't know what kernel this was first part of.
> > Apparently, all active 
> > work on this driver is in the 2.6 tree and the
> > maintainer doesn't 
> > back-port to 2.4 that often - he considers 2.4.x
> > dead.
> 
> I would switch to the 2.6 kernel, but that is not
> directly supported by VMWare. I do recall that there
> is a patch to allow 2.6 kernels, so maybe that is
> the
> answer.
> 
> > If you want to use this driver, your best bet is
> to
> > grab the latest 2.4 
> > kernel (2.4.27 right now, but 2.4.28 soon - I
> think
> > this will have a 
> > much newer forcedeth)
> 
> That's what I'm using, the latest 2.4.27 from debain
> unstable.
> 
> > 
> > If you want to use the NVIDIA binary only driver,
> > you can simply 
> > download it from the NV website. First, build your
> > kernel, install it & 
> > boot into it. Then, simply run the build scripts
> > that come with the NV 
> > driver. They seem to work pretty well. This should
> > work with your 
> > existing kernel.
> 
> This is exactly what I have done; but what is the
> name
> of the module? If not forcedeth, what is it? If I
> knew
> I would try to insmod it and add it to modules.conf
> -
> I asssumed forcedeth since this was listed under
> lsmod.
> 
> ...
> 
> Are there any listings I could send you that might
> help - like lsmod for example?
> 
> Thanks
>