FW: RedHat 7.1, tulip driver for LNE100TX, System Error occured

["Maiorana, Jason" <jmaiorana idirect net>]

This is a message I sent to Jeff Garzik, one of the driver developers,
concerning a problem I had with my Linksys LNE100TX network card, which
I stuck in an old P-90, then tried to install RedHat 7.1 using an NFS
image.

I am forwarding this account to this list so that if they encounter a
similar
issue, maybe theyll find this message in the list archive.

BTW: the NFS install fails horrendously if you choose any RPMS off the
second
disk and that was a MAJOR aggravation, which I really hope somebody
fixes.
None of the old boxes i find ever have CDROMS, so an NFS install is very
convenient.



-----Original Message----- *edited
From: Maiorana, Jason 
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2001 10:25 AM
To: 'Jeff Garzik'
Subject: RE: tulip driver 

I installed a fresh RH7.1 onto a PI 90mhz, and the tulip driver caused a
continuous stream or kernel error messages( "System Error occured"
[sic]).

I rebuilt tulip.o using source downloaded from redhat, commenting out
the block that generates the message.
My firewall machine is running now seemingly fine. (And iptables
seems to be everything I needed in a firewall!)

the message is generated after a flag is checked in the ISR.
it does not seem to cause any special state other than the message,
and the driver appears to work. Its possible that the error flag is
unused in my Linksys card (LNE100TX) and is always raised.

If you look at the tulip driver files, in "interrupt.c" in the routine
"tulip_interrupt" you will see the lines:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~
if (csr5 & SytemError) {
   printk(KERN_ERR "%s: (%lu) System Error occured\n", dev->name,
tp->nir);
}
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~
for me these were getting triggered for every packet, making my system
console unuseable.

If it helps anyone out- it may be best to comment those lines out. They
probably dont give too much usefull information to someone whos card
actually
supports the bit "SystemError", and they make the system unusable if the
bit is
always set.

I have seen one similiar complaint on the internet dated about a year
ago- and
there was no response. 

What I did:
got compat-egcs and all its required rpms, kernel source for redhat 7.1

#
/sbin/service network stop
/sbin/rmmod tulip
cd /usr/src/linux-2.4.3/drivers/net/tulip/
vi interrupt.c #EDIT THE FILE AS DESCRIBED
kgcc -DMODULE -D__KERNEL__ -O6 -c *.c
ld  -r -o tulip.o 21142.o eeprom.o interrupt.o media.o pnic.o timer.o
tulip_core.o
cd /lib/modules/2.4.3-12/kernel/drivers/net/tulip/
mv tulip.o old_tulip.o
cp /usr/src/linux-2.4.3/drivers/net/tulip/tulip.o .
chmod 644 tulip.o
/sbin/service network start