Re: [gentoo-user] kernel 3.8 and external drivers

[Daniel Wagener]

On Sun, 10 Mar 2013 12:49:02 -0600
Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@×××××.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 12:42 PM, Daniel Wagener <stelf@×××.net>
> wrote:
> > On Sun, 10 Mar 2013 12:36:55 -0600
> > Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@×××××.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 12:28 PM, Daniel Wagener <stelf@×××.net>
> >> wrote:
> >> > Hello,
> >> >
> >> > I ran into some trouble about an hour ago…
> >> >
> >> > My workstation has an onboard Realtek Ethernet which only works
> >> > with the r8168 driver. Unfortunately, this driver is not in the
> >> > kernel, but available to be compiled as a kernel module. (I
> >> > guess because of som patents) That worked for quite some time,
> >> > until i thought "hey, you got an hour of time, your workstation
> >> > is still on 3.7.4, why don't you just upgrade it to 3.8.2?" So I
> >> > did, only to find out that Linus and his friends changed the way
> >> > drivers are initialized… (__devinit got unsupported for example)
> >> >
> >> > Of course, the guys who wrote that r8169 have not changed their
> >> > code yet.
> >> >
> >> > tl;dr:
> >> > My network is broken since 3.8.0.
> >> >
> >> > So for an immediate fix I am emerging 3.7.10 (since emerge
> >> > --depclean deleted the Kernel source when it found the source fo
> >> > 3.7.8 which got removed as soon as 3.8.2 was emerged…) to get it
> >> > working again. For the long run im thinking of buying a PCI(e)
> >> > card with Kernel support. Or maybe, if I find some time I will
> >> > fix the driver myself.
> >> >
> >> > My question now is:
> >> > Who should I talk to so something like this does not happen
> >> > again? A certain gentoo dev, who could issue warnings on
> >> > emerging kernels, something like excerpts from the changelog?
> >> > Myself, because I missed what I described above? The devs of the
> >> > r8169? Linus & co for breaking things?
> >> > Myself bcause I forgot something else?
> >> > Realtek?
> >> > Or someone completely different?
> >>
> >> Mmmh. What sources do you use? In vanilla-sources-3.8.2, there is a
> >> r8169 driver:
> >>
> >> ./drivers/net/ethernet/realtek/r8169.c
> >>
> >> config R8169
> >>         tristate "Realtek 8169 gigabit ethernet support"
> >>
> >>          Say Y here if you have a Realtek 8169 PCI Gigabit
> >> Ethernet adapter.
> >>
> >>           To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
> >> module will be called r8169.  This is recommended.
> >>
> >> What is more, I'm using that driver. It works without a problem. Do
> >> you use a different driver with the same name?
> >>
> >> Regards.
> >
> >
> > oh great, so I actually mixed it up…
> > the 8169 is in the Kernel yes, but what i need is the 8168
>
> The in-kernel drive (supposedly) supports 8168:
>
> r8169.c: RealTek 8169/8168/8101 ethernet driver.
>
> Have you tried it recently? When drivers are in-kernel, they usually
> are improved greatly between versions, perhaps it works now with your
> card if it didn't before.
>
> Otherwise, I don't know about your problem.
>
> Regards.

Thanks for encouraging me, the in-kernel driver actually works.

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