2.13 can't connect to network, says 'no active interface'

[cacarr]

This leaves two options:
Disable onboard NICs in BIOS and/or insert a new card with known drivers
or
Try every driver ever issued, including, for Linux, those that appear to be branded by another foundry, recompiling where necessary.
Sometimes you can get lucky by finding a specific answer on some obscure Forum from someone who has actually succeeded with the specific system like yours - this is rare, though. Guessing is like trying to win the lottery.

Ah, well, I suppose it would be easier to use a Live CD distro that works. Guess it's ZenLive then, which is too bad because I prefer Puppy's features.

[Sage]

Not necessarily. Changing a NIC isn't rocket science unless it's an sme in a laptop; even then, you only need to purchase a special IC tip for your soldering iron (CPC.co.uk). Until recently, I'd been discarding NICs pulled from junked office PCs'; even at full retail, they can be had for a bag of beans. Find one that works with every distro and you restore your own freedom of choice, not what some greedy capitalist NIC manufacturer and his puppeteer wants to force upon you.

[cacarr]

I hear what you're saying, but I'm not to inclined to dig around in my school laptop, particularly during finals week. :0

I'm overseas at school at the moment, but when I get back to the States I'll try Puppy out on my desktop (though my DSL connection might be an issue), though, er... I can always install a fatter distro on that. But at any rate, I really wanted to install it on a USB stick (my USB flash wrist watch actually -- oh yeah, that's geeky), but it turns out this POS BIOS doesn't actually support booting from "USB Stick," though it lists as much in the Boot Priority list.

I don't suppose there are any other small distros that let you save settings and data to your boot disk?

Perhaps you can determine a pattern here in terms of kernel versions:

Slax = ethernet controller not detected, no sound, no USB mouse
Puppy = Same
ZenLive = no problems at all

... need to try some more; perhaps PCLinuxOS "Minime"

Find one that works with every distro and you restore your own freedom of choice, not what some greedy capitalist NIC manufacturer and his puppeteer wants to force upon you

Yeah, but I suppose at least some of the "blame" has to be put on all the variation in these distros. It would seem to this noob that there should be some cross-distro standardization in terms of hardware support...add individual bells and whistles on top of a core functionality... ...perhaps some standards entity that issues some sort compliance certification.

[Sage]

Mepis is not to everyone's taste, especially now Warren has sold out to Mr Shuttlecock (sic), which, like PCLinuxOS, seems to work with everything. But the grandaddy of them all is Knoppix, now available in v5.1 with aufs. DSL does lots of things that others can't, although it runs on kernel 2.4.
As soon as you get back to base, I'd don your dirtiest old raincoat and start rummaging around in the local skips/dumpsters and contact Snowdog, who knows all about laptops. In the longer term, Puppy remains your best chance, even though it still requires masses more development time than Barry and the troupe have hours in the day.

[stlchuck]

Glad to hear that you found something that works for you even if it isn't Puppy. One of the blessings/curses of working with Linux is the sheer variety of distros out there - if one doesn't work with your hardware something else likely will. So kudos to you for hanging in there and finding something that does. Maybe somewhere down the road Puppy will be what you need. If you are up for it, I will second Sage's recomendation on Knoppix and/or one of the DSL linux variants - their hardware detection and compatibility is about as good as it gets - Good luck!

[tempestuous]

From the sound of things you may be having a problem similar to what we had with an on the motherboard NIC by Nvidia. Namely the available drivers for it may not be compiled for the version of the kernel that Puppy is currently using.

No, that's not the problem. In cacarr's situation the sky2 module has automaticaly loaded, and that comes from Puppy 2.13's standard set of kernel modules, it's not an add-on.

I wonder why drivers incompatible with the current kernel are even in 2.xx

This is not the case. This only happens when Puppy users download the wrong add-on modules. Personally, when I contribute add-on modules I now append the kernel version to the end of the name.

Back to the problem at hand, the sky2 module appears to be problematic with all modern kernels, not just in Puppy.

Let's say that sk98lin might work for me... would I need to remove sky2

Yes. Do this -

rmmod sky2
modprobe sk98lin

If this doesn't work, there's one last chance; an updated driver from www.marvell.com

Marvell's site does not offer the above driver version for linux 2.4.20 and higher...

That's wrong. At http://www.marvell.com/drivers/driverDi ... 153&pId=36
there's a "Yukon Linux Driver Install Package" version 8.41 available. I just checked it. It contains source code for 2.4 and 2.6 kernels.

[cacarr]

Excellent.

I'll give that a try.

Thanks for wading through that thread...

[cacarr]

rmmod sky2
modprobe sk98lin

Didn't work unfortunately.

I downloaded the files. The "readme" made my eyes bleed.


Let's see...not sure what to initially do with that .bz2

[tempestuous]

I just compiled it.
After installing this dotpup, you will need to do the same as before -

rmmod sky2
modprobe sk98lin

[cacarr]

Great!


I'll report back...




Thanks again....

[cacarr]

I installed the dotpup and issued the appropriate commands.


Wizard still says...

"...it appears the driver module for an ethernet card isn't loaded..."

...before reboot.

Do I need to reboot after the installation? Because the other issue is I'm not being prompted to save the session to the 1 gig save file I added to a FAT32 partition, and it's not happening automatically...but Puppy loads the previous settings on from that file on boot. I end up with sky2 loaded again.

Also, is it possible that the old sk98 isn't being overwritten and is loading again with "modprobe sk98lin" ?

If it's not necessary to reboot, and the correct sk98lin is being loaded, then it doesn't appear to be working with my system.

[tempestuous]

Some diagnosis is needed. After "modprobe sk98lin" run "ifconfig" to see if a valid network interface is listed.

[cacarr]

Some diagnosis is needed. After "modprobe sk98lin" run "ifconfig" to see if a valid network interface is listed.

Will do as soon as I burn another boot disk. This is the 4th one I've hosed trying to create a multi-session disk (I erased the save file on my hard drive because of the aformentioned problems, and because I got nervous about saving data to my Windows system restore partition[Puppy not doing NTFS for me]). CD-R= hosed; DVD-R=toast; DVD-RW=smoked.

Would save to my USB stick, but MUT doesn't see it.

etc, etc, ....

To say nothing of the lack of detection of onboard sound and my USB mouse. *sigh*

First things first, I guess...

Will report back with ifconfig info

[cacarr]

Some diagnosis is needed. After "modprobe sk98lin" run "ifconfig" to see if a valid network interface is listed.

Link encap: Local Loopback


No valid network interface listed.

[cacarr]

I guess that's it for me, eh?

[tempestuous]

I revisit this problem because I see this -

The integrated ethernet interface is not being detected.
Also, no sound and no USB mouse ...

There might be a core problem of Linux/Puppy not playing well with your Gateway MX6625.
I suggest you try the suggestions here about bios settings and/or kernel boot options -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=94043

If still no success, please run "lspci" and post your results. This will list all pci device ID's on your system, and should include the pci-id of your Marvell chipset. It's possible that this pci-id might not be included in the source code for the driver, and this can be fixed.

[jonyo]

Are there any know Puppy issues or common problems with integrated ethernet, Yukon in particular...or even any Gateway laptops in general?

Got a gateway lap (m520) running wifi with on board card setup auto by ethernet wiz in live cd ver 2.12 (or 3).

Wiz loaded the b44 something drivers & i don't think it's supposed to be a wifi driver but 'd hafta check.

Also, usb optical mice (including a no name wireless one) works fine on my Gateway laps (m520 & mx3410).

[cacarr]

If still no success, please run "lspci" and post your results. This will list all pci device ID's on your system, and should include the pci-id of your Marvell chipset. It's possible that this pci-id might not be included in the source code for the driver, and this can be fixed.

Back home, and have had no serious problems on my desktops.

Will give this a try on the laptop soon and post back.

Just thought I would resurrect this thread in the hopes that a solution might prove useful to others with temperamental laptops.

[jonyo]

Might look into what's involved in swapping out the card as others have suggested. Could be that it's a simple matter.

My gateway mx3410 came with a realtek wifi card that seemed to have a cheezy range compared to other systems from the same spot, even in windows. Worked great when closer to the wifi router. Didn't bother much with it in pup but think I got a cheezy connection..at some point, from the same spot.

Ended up swapping out the onboard wifi card with a new e-bay item for ~ 20 bucks & now humming wifi in windows & pup live cd 2.13. Took 1 screw on the bottom of the lap, to swap it out; loaded fine with the pup wizard & ndiswrapper .inf file.

& finally getting to fiddle with this laptop & pup

This is a new laptop & couldn't be bothered to even take it back to the store & sort out a possible warranty issue.
----------------------------------------------------
live cd 2.13 file save on hard drive
mozilla2, seamonky & opera

[cacarr]

I hadn't even gotten to the point before of concerning myself with getting a wifi connection working; problem was getting Puppy to recognize onboard ethernet.

Will have a go at it again soon and report back.