nic driver

[friskydrifter]

I got the gentoo universal live cd - following the instructions i realise they dont have the module for my nic. I have the module for my nic (sis900.o) on a floppy but dont know how to make gentoo use it so i can get on with the rest of the install

ive managed to mount it at /mnt/gentoo/mnt/floppy/sis900.o

i cant copy it to /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net because it is on the cd and obviously write protected.

please help.

[babbing]

Be careful using any old module, unless the sources are the same, it probably won't work.

You will have to send a bug report to them to get them to add it to the ISO. In the mean time, is it possible for you to swap NICs with another machine that you know to be supported?

You could then use the other NIC once you had a full system.



Now the way to actually make an ISO. If none of the above is possible, you can make your own iso. First, start by mounting the gentoo live cd iso to loopback with

mount file.iso /cdrom -t iso9660 -o loop

Now, make a temporary directory, and copy everything out of the ISO on the loopback to the temp dir. Once that is done, you can add the PROPER modules to /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net.

Next, remake the iso with

mkisofs -o /tmp/cd.iso /tmp/directory/

You can then reburn the CD and boot it over again. The CD may not recognize your card, so you will probably need to load the module yourself with modprobe.


-Babbing

[friskydrifter]

Thanks babbing - a few things

When i extract the contents of the cd to a temp directory there is livecd.squashfs where the directories I want to add things to reside. I made a temp dir outside the cdrom dir and tried

mount livecd.squashfs ../temp -t squashfs -o loop

but squashfs is not supported in my kernel. I hate recompiling and cant be bothered with the inevitable errors

Pah!

so bugger it! disabled the onboard nic and installed a pci nic

if i ever get this running i try to use the onboard later.

[babbing]

you have the ISO burnt to a CD, You can just mount the cd and then grab everything. Also, why are you using squashfs? Wouldn't ISO9660 work?

[friskydrifter]

easier to explain like this

 mount install-x86-universal-2004.3-r1.iso cdrom -t iso9660 -o loop

cd cdrom

ls -l
 drwxr-xr-x* 2 root root* * *24576 Nov 22 22:59 distfiles
drwxr-xr-x* 3 root root* * * 2048 Oct 30 03:47 docs
drwxr-xr-x* 2 1000 users* * *2048 Nov 25 13:21 isolinux
-rwx------* 1 root root* 47374336 Nov 25 13:23 livecd.squashfs
drwxr-xr-x* 2 root root* * * 2048 Nov* 3 05:30 snapshots
drwxr-xr-x* 2 root root* * * 4096 Oct 30 00:58 stages
-rw-r--r--* 1 root root* * * *983 Oct 28 00:49 x86-packagelist-2004.3.txt
-rw-r--r--* 1 root root* * * 6510 Oct 28 00:49 x86-release-notes.txt

cp livecd.squashfs ../tmp/

cd ../tmp/livecd.squashfs

-bash: cd: livecd.squashfs: Not a directory

[friskydrifter]

ok i finally got gentoo connected with a different nic

5 hours of install and a billion billion megs of download i got to configuring grub then rebooted

Message from comp: cannot load the operating system.

AAAAARRRGGGGG! stick gentoo up your a**. Smashed the disk!

LOL

this is more for rants an flames i think.

back to Slack!

[babbing]

Are you sure that you just didn't screw up your grub.conf?

[SkyNet]

friskydrifter, ROFLMAO. Give Debian a try too. I'm a Slackware user as well, but I've installed Debian on my server machine, and I'm quite impressed. There are a few kinks I haven't been able to work out yet, but nothing show stopping. It is quite a bit different during install then Slackware, but I think you'll be able to wade through it.

I would also recommend using Sarge instead of Woody, because Woody is to out of date for most modern machines. For example, if you need USB keyboard support at boot, then you're going to want Sarge.

[friskydrifter]

Well of course i stuffed up grub somehow, ( i think i know where but im not lettin on or look like a fool - i was tired after so long :P) but after all that i couldnt be bothered with it anymore. Waiting for the graphic installer if it ever comes out ;-)

Might give Debian a go? see how i feel later on.

[Xamindar]

Why not post your grub.conf file? I have had my share of grub problems in the past and might be able to help.