Network card (Marvell Gigabit (sk98lin)) driver not installe

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The kickstart cd installs normally but network doesn't start.  Research suggest the sk98lin driver is not installed by Debian.

System appears to hang on boot but I can switch to another tty and log in.
ifconfig looks normal to me.

From what I can find it appears I must:
locate sk98lin module source.
locate and install kernel source

Setup special Pluto kernel module compile environment.

Compile module into kernel and replace kernel.

This is the third mb I've had with the built-in Marvell Gigabit interface.  It's not so uncommon.

Is there an easier way to install support for my network card?  

Thanks,

Scoop

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Hi,

Let me understand one part: CD install normally means that it partitions your disc, installs packages and reboots without a hitch?

The sk98lin driver comes with the 2.6.10 kernel we ship our CD with, but doesn't support the newest Marvell cards. Some Marvell cards work, some don't. But there are new Marvell card drivers that seem to come with the 2.6.12 kernel, but I actually can't accurately tell if I'm not wrong. There don't work with 2.6.10 or 2.6.11.

If you have two network cards in your computer, the on-board Marvell and a PCI one, it is possible that the install CD detects the PCI one only, and uses that, since the install sk98lin driver seems to not be so good as the one in the boot kernel. But after reboot, it could get detected and you get the PCI card shifted one position.

As a simple way out, until stable support for Marvell cards gets released, is to use PCI network cards instead, and disabling the Marvell from the BIOS.

But, if the install CD doesn't see it and the boot kernel does (or it goes the other way around), I would like some feedback on this behavior. Thanks.

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The mb is very recent - Aopen i915GMm-HFS, with a 1.8ghz Pentium M and 2x512mb of interleaved DDR2.  It has built-in S-video, component video and DVI ports, 7.1 channel audio (realtek alc880) with SPDIF in and out, SI SATAII Raid... several things that are likely to cause issues with linux.

It has dual Marvell Gigabit lan ports.  One was disabled in bios during Pluto install but may have been detected and used as default.   I enabled the second port in bios after pluto install to see if it made a difference but no luck.  Ifconfig shows only one ethernet port configured and reboot does not detect the new port.   I'll try a fresh install of pluto with both ports enabled when I get a chance.   First I'll try to figure out which port Debian has configured.  Or you could tell me how to do that.

The server is built in a 1U case, PCI network card not an option.   I have a USB ethernet card but I'm hesitant to embark on getting that to work as a temp fix unless you tell me the Debian install will detect and configure it.

Scoop

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After much effort and guesswork I got the sk98lin module compiled with what may be the correct kernel source. The source for 2.6.10-1 was nearly impossible to find.  I have no idea if there are pluto specific kernel patches that need to be applied but the module compiled.  It loads and runs although it throws out a kernel tainted error.  This may be because I had kernel headers from 2.6.10-6, I don't know.

I had to disable the firewire port in bios because debian was calling that eth0.  

I reran the kickstart, repartitioned etc, and when the cd ejected and system rebooted I escaped grub to move in my new module.

That worked fine but I need to restart the install script for the first boot.

Can I just run /usr/pluto/install/Install_Config.sh?

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After much effort and guesswork I got the sk98lin module compiled with what may be the correct kernel source. The source for 2.6.10-1 was nearly impossible to find.

Yeah, we forgot to take the source in when we took the binary and we don't have the original package either. Sorry for that...

I have no idea if there are pluto specific kernel patches that need to be applied but the module compiled.  It loads and runs although it throws out a kernel tainted error.  This may be because I had kernel headers from 2.6.10-6, I don't know.

There are no pluto specific patches. The kernel is the same one as Debian shipped when we froze their sarge mirror for our system. But the kernel is from unstable, and unstable upgraded since then.

The kernel probably gets tainted because of version differences between the kernel and the modules you built. Most of the time this works with out a glitch.

I had to disable the firewire port in bios because debian was calling that eth0.

I reran the kickstart, repartitioned etc, and when the cd ejected and system rebooted I escaped grub to move in my new module.

That worked fine but I need to restart the install script for the first boot.

Can I just run /usr/pluto/install/Install_Config.sh?

Yeah, you should be able to just run /usr/pluto/install/Initial_Config.sh, but be sure you only have eth0 and no eth1 entry in /etc/network/interfaces. Pluto scripts use that file to detect which is your internet facing card. After that it overwrites it each boot with database-stored data.