While installing Centos 5.0 x86-64 on a Gigabyte GA-945GM-S2 motherboard which has Realtek 8111B Ethernet chip - Anaconda crashes. I select the option to use the Centos online repository for extra packages - I am asked to enter IP address etc. The drop box to select the Ethernet interface is blank. If I enter valid IP address and gateway - anaconda crashes and the system reboots from CD. I think that the NIC chip is not correctly detected by anaconda - and there must be a problem in the logic which allows anaconda to try to connect to the network without any available network adaptor.

Incidentally - I also use a version of Linux called Trinity Rescue. The current version of trinity used kernel 2.6.19.2 - and this detects and runs the same Ethernet chip fine. Maybe the newer kernel fixes the problem - or maybe the problem is specific to x86-64 architecture.

In Bug report 0001947 someone reports he fixed this problem with a new driver from realtek and/or redhat. I have downloaded this driver - but can anyone point me to instructions on how to compile and install it? I have built a Centos 5.0 without network support.

Alternatively - does anyone know when we expect a Centos 5.1 release? Is there a beta I can get hold of before the release?

Alternatively - can I download updates for the Centos 5 from a yum repository using a working cetos 4.4 installation - then use yum or rpm to install a new kernel or driver on the Centos 5.0 system? Can anyone suggest were I would find instructions on how to do this?

Thanks

Richard.