Bugzilla Bug 148090

The minimal installation cd doesnt support the Realtek 8168/8111 net card, so i
couldnt use this cd to install gentoo

Do you now have a working Gentoo installation on this hardware which you could
test some kernel patches on?

i had the same problem. i solved it with building the r1000 module after
copying the sources to an usb stick and building the module from the
livecd(with the gcc from a stage archiv). but there is also a patchset for
2.6.17 kernels so the built-in r8169 driver works for 8168 cards...(btw 2.6.18
should already have this support without the need to patch) nevertheless you
have to copy the sources to an usb stick or something else, so you can build
modules from the livecd environment.  of course, the sources must be of the
same kernel version as the kernel the livecd runs! for further imformation see
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=129216#c11
i recommend to patch your 2.6.17 kernel after setting up your gentoo or use
2.6.18. r1000 will become obsolete soon.

Sebastian, do you now have a working Gentoo installation on this hardware which
you could test some kernel patches on? Or even just plain 2.6.18 if you think
that would work?

(I've been looking to support this hardware for a fairly long time, but I have
yet to find someone actually willing to test stuff. Please help!)

Hi Daniel,
Yes I've got a running gentoo installation on my hardware. And I always love to
help! Up to now I used the r1000 drivers from my ebuild mentioned above. Then I
added the patches mentioned in the link above to suspend2-sources-2.6.17-r6 ( I
had to edit the patches to fit it to the sources after the gentoo patches...).
Unfortunately it didn't work! In this minutes I'm configuring my new
suspend2-2.6.18. I extracted the r8169.c patch from the 2.6.18-rc6-mm1 patch
and I will see in a few minutes if this will work for my 8168 card.
Just say how I may help.

OK. Please attach "lspci -v" output to start. Also, you mentioned that you
think 2.6.18 works out-of-the-box - please confirm/deny this.

Created an attachment (id=97993) [edit]
2.6.18 patch

I'm fairly sure 2.6.18 doesn't support your hardware. Please try this patch.

Hi Daniel,
no, I said, I try it with the 2.6.18-rc6-mm1 patch applied on the r8169.c file
from suspend2-sources-2.6.18. Unfortunately, I couldn't finish my 2.6.18 build
process yet because of errors in the ebuild :( ->
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=148549
But I'll have finished in some minutes.

The patch you submitted does not work because it's the last patch in a patching
chain...look at http://www.fr.zoreil.com/linux/kernel/2.6.x/2.6.17-rc6/r8169/
this is the same patch against 2.6.17 like yours against 2.6.18(isn't it?)(btw
this was mentioned in the link in my first post.) your patch was number 00005
;) nevertheless the patch from this link doesn't work! I can apply it, no
problem(well i had to edit them so they fit to the gentoo patch set) in
compiling and even in loading the module and run ifconfig, but I can't make
network actions, like with the r1000 module.

And 2.6.18 doesn't support my 8168 card unpatched, a "grep 8168 r8169.c" shows
that ;) with the 2.6.18-rc6-mm1 patch applied on the r8169.c file, i have 8168
in the pci table, grep shows something. When I can finally compile the patched
2.6.18 kernel(my sync is finished soon :) ), we will know more.

Created an attachment (id=98069) [edit]
lspci -v output - Asus A6T (amd64)

Created an attachment (id=98076) [edit]
r8169-8168_2.6.18.patch - stolen from 2.6.18-rc6-mm1 patch

Wohoo! I just build my new 2.6.18 kernel with this patch stolen from
http://www.kernel.org/diff/diffview.cgi?file=%2Fpub%2Flinux%2Fkernel%2Fpeople%2Fakpm%2Fpatches%2F2.6%2F2.6.18-rc6%2F2.6.18-rc6-mm1%2F2.6.18-rc6-mm1.bz2;z=1693
and neworking works great!
Daniel, do you want me to give the patches from
http://www.fr.zoreil.com/linux/kernel/2.6.x/2.6.18-rc5/r8169/ a try?

Actually no, I know that the older patches were broken. The patch I attached
here was taken straight from 2.6.19 and fixed to apply against 2.6.18 by
myself, so there isn't a clear reason why it doesn't work. I guess the next
step is to test 2.6.18-git4 or newer.

Also, I'm not prepared to apply the changes directly from -mm as it includes
too many unrelated changes in the driver. We'll take the changes that are
needed and ideally no more...

Created an attachment (id=98078) [edit]
patch -p1 --dry-run --verbose Outputs

This are the Outputs, hope they help you. I applied both patches against clean
gentoo/suspend2-2.6.18 sources.
Feel free to send other patches that I should test(e.g. the git4 patch you
mentioned). Or, if you want, my r8169.c file so you can see the diffs between
your r8169.c file and mine.

Created an attachment (id=98087) [edit]
new patch

Oh, so you didn't even get the patch I posted to apply without rejects? What
you wrote in comment #7 suggested otherwise...

I appear to have uploaded the wrong file. Here's one that applies cleanly to
2.6.18.

I can confirm that the patch you submitted works! r8169.c compiles, insmod
works, and the module does his job! No errors in dmesg.
In #7 I wrongly assumed that your patch is from a chain...this should have
implied that it doesn't patch without rejects ^^ sorry for the unclear words.

Thanks for testing.

releng: This will be fixed as of gentoo-sources-2.6.18-r1

2.6.18-r1 is now in portage

We're using 2.6.19 as a base, so this is FIXED now that 2007.0 is out.