This is in fact a linux kernel bug: since 2.6.12 i am unable to access the 3COM 3c590 vortex in my system. I use the BNC output of the network card (what is properly detected by the driver), but since the packets don't seem to reach the driver i doubt, that this matters. Since the live CD 2005.1 uses a 2.6.12 kernel, this bug prevents me from installing Gentoo. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Boot live CD (network adapter is properly detected) 2. Configure eth0 3. Ping other machine on subnet Actual Results: The tx counter does not increase. Expected Results: send out packets and receive responses
Hrrrmn... the driver works fine for me, but I'm using 3C905 and 3C920 chips. Adding kernel team to CC to see if this is resolved. Can you boot with older media and perhaps determine if this has been resolved in a newer kernel?
There have been power-management related problems come and go recently. It would be useful to know which "kernels since 2.6.12" have been tested.
I have checked all kernels since 2.6.12 (vanilla kernels from kernel.org): all 2.6.12 minor versions, all 2.6.13 minor versions until .2, and 2.6.14-rc3 just yesterday. There also is an entry in the kernel bugzilla (#4818) which describes this problem; i have attached lots of output there from the working 2.6.11.12 kernel as well as from the not working 2.6.12 and .13. Regarding Power management: The ACPI bios of this (rather old) motherboard is not recognized by the kernel; in all the kernels i compiled myself, i have hence switched it off. Maybe this is of relevance: when i boot into my home grown system, all eth0 packet counters remain 0. If i boot the gentoo image, the tx counter is 2, maybe due to dhcp? If there is anything i can do to provide more meaningful information, please let me know.
will bounce back after fix
will track upstream bug
Quick question for the OP... what if you boot the CD with acpi=off?
Anybody know if this has been fixed in newer kernels? I see that the bug is still open upstream, but it could be possible it was fixed and nobody noticed... ;]
The bug still persists in 2.6.16-rc6 as well as in 2.6.15.6. I compiled both of these kernel on Sunday and the results didn't change since 2.6.12. I furthermore noticed, that the problem only seems to occur when the NIC is connected to a cheapernet cable (which seems to be less common nowadays ;-). As soon as i connect the NIC to an (otherwise unconnected) 10baseT switch and ping something, the counters shown by ifconfig increase.
reporter is no longer using this hardware
