Cannot get ethernet off the ground

[Roland Smith]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 06:17:35PM -0500, William Gordon Rutherdale wrote:
> Well isn't that just great.
> 
> I'm using the amd64 version, don't know if this makes a difference.

It shouldn't really. AFAIK the code for the network interface drivers is
architecture independant. On amd64 I also had some troubles with re(4)
based cards, but I had an old xl(4) based card lying around, and with
the upgrade to 7.1 the age(4) chip on my mobo also became usable. So I
ditched the re(4) based card.

<snip>
> I just tried the FreeBSD 7.1 bootonly and the configure window at least 
> listed the device, which is an improvement over before.  Now if it only 
> lists it but the driver doesn't work, then I still will have a 
> communication problem where I can't easily get the correct file to the 
> machine.

The network configuration of sysinstall only shows devices that actually
show up in /dev/net. That means that the driver was at least able to
initialize the hardware. So chances are that it works. As I've mentioned
before I had upload speed troubles with re(4) based cards, but I don't
know if rl(4) based cards have/had the same problems. Copying large
files with nc(1) over a cross-cable link between two machines will
rapidly show you if you can max out the link.

> I'll just try installing 7.1 for now and see how it looks.

That's probably the best solution. It is always best to upgrade to the
latest released version before asking questions about hardware support,
because updating is probably the first advice you'd get.
 
> Thanks for the heads up anyway.

You're welcome. :-)
 
Roland
-- 
R.F.Smith                                   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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