Network connection cannot be configured after kernel update openSUSE-2012-700

English Network/Internet
1

I have a Biostar A880GZ motherboard, on-board Realtek RTL8111/8168B pci express gigabit ethernet controller, AMD Sempron 145 cpu, running OpenSuse 12.2 32 bit. I use a static ip setup for my home network.

The recent kernel update, openSUSE-2012-700 caused my network connection to fail. Yast Network Manager gives the following error message:

“Unable to configure the network card because the kernel device (eth0, wlan0) is not present. This is mostly caused by missing firmware (for wlan devices). See dmesg output for details.”

Reverting back to the earlier kernel, dmesg contains the lines:

9.291040] R8169 0000:02:00.0: eth0 linkup
9.291145] addconf (net dev_change): eth0: link becomes ready

With kernel update 2012-700, dmesg does not contain any lines that reference eth0, but does contain the following lines I thought might refer to the network connection:

TCP: cubic registered
NET: registered protocol family 10
lib80211: common routines for IEEE802.11 drivers
lib80211_crypt: registered algorithm “null”
registering the dns_resolver key type using ipi no-shortcut mode

With the earlier kernel, /sbin/lspci -nnk yielded:

02:00.0 ethernet controller: Realtek Semi Conductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B pci express gigabit ethernet controller [10ec:8168] (rev 06) subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int’l Corp device [1565:230a]
kernel driver in use: r8169

With kernel update 2012-700, /sbin/lspcie -nnk yielded the same information about the ethernet controller, but did not include the line about the kernel driver.

Is there a way to restore my network connection with the kernel update?

Thanks in advance for your help.

2

Check in Yast to see that you have the relevant “kernel-firmware” package installed. I seem to recall that on one occasion an installation did not install this package for the kernel. The result was a curious list of entries in my network interfaces list where the onboard NIC was listed twice, the current one being inactive but the other active but unusable, presumably related to a different inactive kernel.

3

Thank you for your reply.

I have kernel-firmware version 20120719git-2.9.1 installed

4

I still cannot configure my network connection after kernel update opensuse-2012-700.

Here is a list of things I’ve tried that have not changed my outcome:

  1. Updated my BIOS to the newest version

  2. Installed a pcie network card with a different controller

  3. Installed a pci network card from a different machine which did not have the problem with the kernel update

  4. Toggled every bios setting for pci and pci express

  5. Added “pci=nocrs” to /etc/default/grub and ran grub2-mkconfig

At this point, I would say this motherboard is not compatible with linux, except for the fact that it works just fine as long as the kernel update -700 is not installed.

Does anyone know anything else I can do?

5

On 2012-10-29 23:16, joea0121 wrote:

> At this point, I would say this motherboard is not compatible with
> linux, except for the fact that it works just fine as long as the kernel
> update -700 is not installed.

I have no idea what “kernel update 700” is. Please, could you instead talk in terms like I have such
openSUSE version, and I updated to such kernel version? Like the output of an rpm query.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))

6

Thank you for your reply.

I am using openSUSE 12.2 kernel-desktop-3.4.6-2.10.1.i686.

Online update openSUSE-2012-700 (kernel: security and bug fix update) installed kernel-desktop-3.4.11-2.16.1.i686. It is with this kernel that I cannot configure my network connection.

7

On 2012-10-31 01:36, joea0121 wrote:

> I am using openSUSE 12.2 kernel-desktop-3.4.6-2.10.1.i686.
>
> Online update openSUSE-2012-700 (kernel: security and bug fix update)
> installed kernel-desktop-3.4.11-2.16.1.i686. It is with this kernel that
> I cannot configure my network connection.

Thanks.

What about the kernel-firmware package, was it upgraded, is it missing?

I’m thinking that perhaps you should write a bugzilla.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))

8

The kernel firmware package is installed and does update.

How do I go about writting a bugzillia?

9

On 2012-10-31 05:16, joea0121 wrote:

> The kernel firmware package is installed and does update.
>
> How do I go about writting a bugzillia?

openSUSE:Submitting bug
reports

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))