frustrating problem with networking encountered while installing "Woody"

From: Renhao Zhang (thinkren_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 03/20/04

  • Next message: Brad Sims: "Re: Console is screwy (shows what looks like boot log)" 
    Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 17:31:42 -0800 (PST)
To: debian-user-digest@lists.debian.org

    I'm trying to dual boot an old Pentium box with Debian
    "Woody" and win98. The few bugs I've encountered are
    falling one by one as I work on the new installation.
    However, one persistant mystery has remained stuborn.
    Here is the problem: booting from Windows, I can get
    onto my home LAN and reach the internet just fine with
    a dial-up gateway (the Actiontec dual pc modem) as the
    DHCP server. But if the Linux partition boots, the
    network vanishes. It pauses for an unusually long
    time at "configuring network interfaces......" By all
    indications, networking on the box is functional:
    there are no hardware related error messages during
    boot or in the kernel logs. loop-back is fine when I
    ping 127.0.0.1, but no other IPs are reachable.
    conversely, the box can't be pinged by any other
    machines on the network either. Flashing LEDs on my 8
    port switch seems to indicate there is a signal
    present, but nothing is getting through in either
    direction when Woody is running. The NIC is a netgear
    FA 310TX for which I'm using the tulip driver.

    In addition to Windows, KNOPPIX networks just fine
    with no problems.

    An experienced collegue suggested that there might be
    a IRQ conflict with another device. Debian boot lists
    the NIC as using IRQ 12. In windows, the diagnostic
    tool AIDA32 returned the following:

    IRQ 0C shared NETGEAR FA310TX fast
    ethernet PCI adapter
    IRQ 0C shared IRQ Holder for PCI
    Steering

    First of all, what is PCI steering? Is there a way to
    uncouple the two so they use different IRQs?

    My own suspicion is that an old USR Sportster ISA
    winmodem might have something to do with it. The
    thing is useless with Linux but I don't want to trash
    it because it still works well under Win98. I think
    it is worth keeping for those rare emergencies. does
    anyone know if an IRQ would be assigned by Linux to
    hardware it doesn't recognize?

    The last time I handled Linux was when Redhat 5.2 was
    new. Back then I don't remember having much hardware
    headaches. At the end of my ropes, I even tried a few
    days ago to explicitly declare an IP, hoping the DHCP
    server might back down and just let the damn NIC talk
    to somebody-anybody.

    After some googling, I found one other account of
    almost the same problem:
    http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?threadid=110910
    the only difference is the router being used.

    The guy who started the thread never said if his
    problem was solved. I've tried everything suggested
    to him to no avail. Everthing that is, except the
    last one, which I didn't quite understand. I quote
    the following:

    "I have the exact same network card that you do, and
    have had the same problem. I have never been able to
    do a net install with dhcp using the bf2.4 kernel. So
    what I do is just install the base system with the
    vanilla kernel. Then just apt-get the 2.4.18 kernel
    source and compile it with the tulip driver and MAKE
    SURE you also have packet filtering and socket
    filtering enabled as well. They are under the network
    options. You must have those two options enabled for
    dhcp to work with that card. So the bf2.4 kernel
    probably doesn't have them enabled."

    I'm not sure I understand what is being said. Are you
    supposed to apt-get the 2.4.18 kernel with the 'Woody'
    iso disc set as the source? I'll try to learn how to
    recompile the kernel to see if that solves the
    problem, but I wanted to see if anyone else has
    encountered similar problems and suceeded in solving
    it.

    Thanks in advance for any new insight.
    -Ren

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