[ubuntu] Ubuntu 8.04 with Marvell Yukon 88E8040T

[allinitis]

Hello,

I have the same issue with a Toshiba A300D Amd64, running Ubuntu Hardy Heron and I believe the same Marvell adapter. I am a complete Novice regarding Linux and in a similarly isolated position as far as the internet goes. This maybe a stupid question but is there any way of performing the steps outlined by pmasereeuw without an internet connection on that machine?

Thanks

Allinitis

[sophie27]

mmmm it seems quite hard to perform it without a connection.

I don't have a connection and when I want to install a package I download it from http://packages.ubuntu.com/ and it is ok (even if quite long, because you have to pay attention to dependencies! so you have to download several packages each time).

But even if you get the packages in this way (ex: git-core), then how can you perform the following functions (ex: git clone git etc...)??

I wait for your opinions...

[wanted]

Hi, I've found a simpler solution than recompiling the kernel, which is simply to patch the binary driver. See the bug #239852 in launchpad:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/239852

[Koalasa]

Thank you. My problem is that I am really a beginner and I don't understand anything to what is a kernel and a binary driver ... Taht makes it much harder to rebuild, patch or so. Can anyone explain me how to make it step by step ? Tank you.

[wanted]

OK, I hope the following instructions should help. All you need to do is to open a terminal and copy-paste the following commands.

$ sudo su -
[type your password]
# rmmod sky2
# cd /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net
# cp -p sky2.ko{,.orig}
# perl -pe 's/\0\0\x6c\x43/\0\0\x55\x43/g' sky2.ko.orig > sky2.ko
# echo sky2 >> /etc/modules
# modprobe sky2

The last command loads the fixed driver and you should see it detect your network card like this:
$ dmesg | grep sky2
[ 30.364735] sky2 0000:07:00.0: v1.20 addr 0x88000000 irq 17 Yukon-FE+ (0xb8) rev 0
[ 30.365174] sky2 eth0: addr 00:1e:68:46:d3:34
[ 33.962661] sky2 eth0: enabling interface

On next reboot, the driver should load automatically, so all you need to do is to configure the network parameters then.

Obviously, when you upgrade your kernel (e.g. via Synaptic) you should repeat all the commands up to the "perl" line.

HTH.

[Koalasa]

Tank you that worked. I now can browse on the Internet using my ethernet controller.

[sophie27]

Thank you, wanted, I'm gonna try you solution!


Actually, I've succeeded in compiling a new kernel (read my last post in:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=816413) but, the new kernel...does not work (kernel panic!) and I don't understand why (i suppose there's some problem in configuration...)

Anyway, your solution sounds good ...
I'll tell you...

[sophie27]

A little problem: when I do "rmmod sky2" i get this error:

ERROR: Module sky2 does not exist in /proc/modules.



(I have KUBUNTU 8.04)

[sophie27]

Ok, I've done it (doing modprobe sky2 before all)!
Now I can see my connection, THANK YOU SO MUCH, WANTED.

I don't want to bother you, but just to understand better: can you explain
more in details (or tell me where I can get explanations about that) the meaning of the commands:

# cp -p sky2.ko{,.orig}
# perl -pe 's/\0\0\x6c\x43/\0\0\x55\x43/g' sky2.ko.orig > sky2.ko

i mean, i understand that the first is to copy and to second to modify sky2, but i would like to understand them better.

Thank you again, have a good day

[wanted]

Yeah, rmmod was just in case you already have the module loaded in memory, but if that's not the case, then rmmod will show a harmless error message.

The "cp -p sky2.ko{,.orig}" is equivalent to "cp -p sky2.ko sky2.ko.orig", just using shell expansion for brevity. More info in "man bash", topic "Brace Expansion".

In perl I'm using the basic search&replace function s/foo/bar/. Because we have hexadecimal numbers (the PCI IDs), we need to escape them with \x. \0 is a null character. More info here: http://www.kichwa.com/quik_ref/expressions.html

It's also worth noting that the numbers are reversed, remember that the PCI ID of 88E8040T is 4355 (hex), but we write is as \x55\x43. The reason is that x86 is a little-endian architecture and the least significant bytes are written first.