Out of the frying pan into the Fire with LAN cards.(SOLVED)

Nik-Ken-Bah

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 9, 2019
Messages
735
Reaction score
716
Credits
2,741
I found out what my problem was that prevents me from getting on the net.
I have an ASRock mother board and the LAN card is integrated into it and it is a Realtek RTL8111GR and the driver that Mint loaded is the wrong driver.
Looked at driver in Mint and also the one Loaded in windows.
My query is this.
I have spare PCIE slots on my board and I was wondering is it possible to install another LAN card and make the integrated LAN card redundant just like the on board integrated graphics card and sound cards.
If it is possible to do so "What are some of the better cards that are compatible with Linux and other non-windows distros?"
Any ideas welcomed in working around this bit of a bother. Cheers.
 
Last edited:


G'day @Nik-Ken-Bah and a belated welcome to linux.org :D

I am moving this Thread to Linux Networking, in hope you get a more qualified audience.

Good luck!

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
what is the output of ...

lsmod | grep 80211

and

lspci | grep Ethernet
 
Not to take away from Dos2unix' questions, but yes you can add another NIC and use it instead of the onboard. But answer the above questions, Dos2unix might be able to help you with the onboard one and save you some cash.
 
Thank you dos2unix will run those commands and get back to you with details of what they show.
Thank you TechnoJunky for the clarification about the NIC. I will do as dos2unix suggests but just in case it goes pear shape and wonky. What NIC brands do you suggest would be good to use with Linux?
 
This is what it returned

~$ lsmod | grep 80211
@Goldie:~$ lspci | grep Ethernet
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 11)

the other day I looked at my drivers and there was this driver installed r8168 and it is the same one that is installed on Win7
Hope this helps you.

As an aside I don't mind using the terminal at least it tells you when it doesn't understand what you want and gives you a clue. like when I typed in the commands the first time I couldn't locate this | and with the lspci comand it came back with sudo apt install <debian name>
Unlike command prompt it gives you SFA except don't know that command.
 
I found out what my problem was that prevents me from getting on the net.
I have an ASRock mother board and the LAN card is integrated into it and it is a Realtek RTL8111GR and the driver that Mint loaded is the wrong driver.
Looked at driver in Mint and also the one Loaded in windows.
My query is this.
I have spare PCIE slots on my board and I was wondering is it possible to install another LAN card and make the integrated LAN card redundant just like the on board integrated graphics card and sound cards.
If it is possible to do so "What are some of the better cards that are compatible with Linux and other non-windows distros?"
Any ideas welcomed in working around this bit of a bother. Cheers.
Welcome to linux.org good sir! :3 I'm not as good with networking on Linux, but as far as LAN goes, Intel seems to be good... :) Linux has a lot of Drivers nowadays, and even the lesser-used BSDs have Drivers to go around too. :) The beauty of Open Source Drivers? You never need to worry about them becoming Abandonware. :D
 
It seems that the lsmod command didn't show what I expected.

Can you try this command...

lsmod | grep r8

when you run ...

ip addr

what interfaces do you see?
 
It seems that the lsmod command didn't show what I expected.

Can you try this command...

lsmod | grep r8

when you run ...

ip addr

what interfaces do you see?
Will do!
 
It seems that the lsmod command didn't show what I expected.

Can you try this command...

lsmod | grep r8

when you run ...

ip addr

what interfaces do you see?



the other commands
Goldie:~$ lsmod | grep r8
r8169 86016 0
mii 16384 1 r8169

Goldie:~$ ip addr
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enp4s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether d0:50:99:49:69:19 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

To tell you the truth dos2unix some of it I sort of understand but the rest is all double dutch to me.
Give me time and I will get the gist of what it says.
 
How did it go...? :3
Getting there. With the NIC's I would like some model numbers so that I can look at their specs when I chase them down in Eastern Europe as I am a transplant here. I hail from Southern climes.
 
ls just means "list" in "linux speak". pci is your Peripheral Component Interconnect bus.

All that means is... it's the hardware in your computer.

So lspci ... means list all the hardware in my computer.
Now because you have certain kind f hardware... doesn't mean your OS has the drivers
to run it.

lsmod (notice the "ls" again) mean list all the modules that my kernel is using.

There are usually dozens of them. The trick is finding the one for your specific device.

So I see this...

r8169 86016 0

I know the kernel is using this driver for your network device.

I see your kernel sees this interface as enp4s0

(typically that means it's the 4th device on your PCI bus, but not always)

enp = pci, eno = onboard, enu = usb, etc...

You can verify that this is the driver (kernel module) that interface is using with this command...

ethtool -i enp4s0
 
Thank you dos2unix for the explanation appreciated.
Ran Ethtool and this is what it returned the second last Goldie is also what I put in first and thought I was doing something wrong that is the reason for the other paragraphs. the last one was a check on myself and that I was inputting it right.

What am I doing bloody wrong

mullity@Goldie:~$ ethtool -h
ethtool version 4.15
Usage:
ethtool DEVNAME Display standard information about device

FEATURE on|off ...
ethtool -i|--driver DEVNAME Show driver information
ethtool -d|--register-dump DEVNAME Do a register dump
[ raw on|off ]
[ file FILENAME ]

ethtool -h|--help Show this help
ethtool --version Show version number

@Goldie:~$ ethtool|-i emp4s0
ethtool: bad command line argument(s)
For more information run ethtool -h
-i: command not found

@Goldie:~$ ethtool| -i emp4s0
ethtool: bad command line argument(s)
For more information run ethtool -h
-i: command not found

@Goldie:~$ ethtool| emp4s0
ethtool: bad command line argument(s)
For more information run ethtool -h
emp4s0: command not found

@Goldie:~$ ethtool -i
ethtool: bad command line argument(s)
For more information run ethtool -h
@Goldie:~$ -i ethtool emp4s0
-i: command not found

@Goldie:~$ ethtool - i emp4s0
ethtool: bad command line argument(s)
For more information run ethtool -h

@Goldie:~$ ethtool --version
ethtool version 4.15
 
Nik,

You've got a typo either in your computer entry or when posting.

You show..
Ethtool -i emp4s0

Not..
Ethtool -i enp4s0
 
Chainzaw
Ya bloody right at that but that is what comes when ya get long in the tooth. Hee Hee.
here is the updated version
This is when I run enp4s0 instead of emp4s0

Goldie:~$ ethtool -i enp4s0
driver: r8169
version: 2.3LK-NAPI
firmware-version: rtl8168g-2_0.0.1 02/06/13
expansion-rom-version:
bus-info: 0000:04:00.0
supports-statistics: yes
supports-test: no
supports-eeprom-access: no
supports-register-dump: yes
supports-priv-flags: no

This is when I run
@Goldie:~$ ethtool -i emp4s0
Cannot get driver information: No such device
but also I found this in the Realtek folder on windows.

After installation, please ensure the device name is '8168C' , not '8168B'.

The driver options are different between the two cards.

from the PCIe GBE Family Controller Properties

Driver version--- 7.89.716.2014

Driver key--- {4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0007

Hope that helps in determining where we go in fixing the hassle.
 
It appears that your system isn't loading the correct driver for your card.

Found an article that addresses this, but couldn't see a date for the article. It may still be relevant, or not.

 
Chainzaw
Thanks for the link though I had read that article before I got on this site and the article is 3 years old. But since I was new to Linux I was apprehensive about doing it cold so to speak.
I downloaded the tar.gz file for the driver.
But one line that I am unsure of is this one

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Do I type in uname or something else?

I copied the article into open-office and saved it for ron so I can refer to it as I do it.
Note pad on this machine doesn't like saving when it contains command lines in the note. Unlike Linux's equivalent to note pad same with reading Linux just asks what you want to do with the note you are opening.

what is meant by tar?
 


Top