[CentOS] Request advise regarding Driver for Intel Motherboard

Wed Sep 9 06:37:41 UTC 2009
Sanjay Arora <sanjay.k.arora at gmail.com>

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 3:15 AM, Ned Slider<ned at unixmail.co.uk> wrote:
> Sanjay Arora wrote:
>>> I believe this is the one you want:
>>> http://elrepo.org/linux/elrepo/el5/i386/RPMS/kmod-r8169-6.010.00_NAPI-2.el5.elrepo.i686.rpm
>>>
>>> Or if you're running the Xen kernel:
>>> http://elrepo.org/linux/elrepo/el5/i386/RPMS/kmod-r8169-xen-6.010.00_NAPI-2.el5.elrepo.i686.rpm
>>>
>>> Once you get your network setup right, I advise you to set up the
>>> elrepo repository (see http://elrepo.org for instructions on how to do
>>> it) so you get updates for this module once newer versions are
>>> released.
>>
>> Thanks Filipe
>>
>> Never knew about this repo.
>>
>> Will try and post back.
>>
>> Sanjay.
>
> There is also information at the top of this page (below) that explains
> how to identify the correct driver for your hardware by querying the
> vendor:device ID pairing and comparing to the list of supported devices
> here:
>
> http://elrepo.org/tiki/DeviceIDs
>
Thanks

lspci | grep -i "Ethernet" shows RTL8111/8168B PCI Adapter

Intel site on the other hand linked to 8169 driver, which in this case
is obviously wrong.

Now, situation is this...if I query rpm using rpm -qa | grep -e "kmod"
it shows 8169 driver is installed. However, if I try to uninstall it
using rpm -e, it states that it is not installed.

On the other hand, 8168 rpm documentation at elrepo.org states "The
Realtek documentation states that any r8169 driver must be unloaded
(and disabled) before the r8168 driver is used. The kmod-r8168 package
will perform this task for you."

And again trying to install 8168 rpm using rpm -ivh shows errors that
it needs kernel(xxx) modules. Elrepo does not seem to have kernel
modules and in any case if I try to get latest kernel module, it will
try to update the entire system from centos 5.0 to 5.3.

So, how do I do it? Should I install additional  nic card that will
enable me to update the system online and  install the 8168 driver and
then try to rediscover this onboard nic so that the nic card can be
removed?

But I want to know which version of kernel is this demanding.....it
simply shows a hash, not a human readable kernel version number.

Awaiting earliest response. Thanks.
Sanjay.