2.2.5 kernel upgrade

[Mike Bilow]

Matthew Herzog wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:

 MH> I just last week did a clean install of RH 5.2 last week and
 MH> spent a great deal of effort getting WindowMaker 52
 MH> installed. All was well until today when I endeavored to
 MH> install an up-to-date kernel, 2.2.5. Now I can't get a DHCP
 MH> address from Mediaone.

OK, that could be a problem.

 MH> I see reference to the Vortex/Boomerang driver when I
 MH> "dmesg" and boot up but when I did a "locate eth0" I found
 MH> that the device was missing! Yes, I checked the /dev dir
 MH> carefully and yes, it's gone. I have used xconfig and
 MH> ./configure to hack the kernel and made sure I selected the
 MH> driver. I can't add any specific card with netcfg. I screwed
 MH> up the eth0 somehow in my stock 2.0.36 kernel, which I can
 MH> still boot to.

First, "locate" only searches things in the filesystem, and then only
indirectly by way of the database created with "updatedb".  So the lack of a
hit -- in the filesystem -- with "locate" could simply mean that you need to
rebuild the database by running "updatedb" as root.

Second, network devices don't appear in the filesystem, so they are never going
to be seen by "locate" regardless of whether its database it current.  There is
no such thing as "/dev/eth0" at any time, in other words.  Network devices are
loaded dynamically and the correct tool to see them is "ifconfig".

Issuing "ifconfig" without any arguments will usually show you are configured
interfaces.  Issuing "ifconfig eth0" will show you what can be learned about
"eth0" specifically.

Is the network driver configured statically in the kernel or as a module?  If a
module, did you "make modules" and "make modules_install" after building your
own kernel?  Is the database built by "depmod -a" current?  If the modules are
not synchronized to the running kernel, then you will be unable to access any
modularized devices.
 
-- Mike


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