pcnet_cs: use axnet_cs instead

[Peter Stuge]

Hi Diego,

On Fri, Jan 25, 2008 at 07:01:46PM +0100, Diego Rondini wrote:
> I have a PCMCIA net card with no brand. During boot up kernel says:
> 
> pcnet_cs: this is an AX88190 card!
> pcnet_cs: use axnet_cs instead.
> pcnet_cs: unable to read hardware net address for io base 0x300

..

> I tried manually blacklisting pcnet_cs (with success) and manually
> modprobing axnet_cs (with success) but still no interface is found
> in /sys/class/net.

I think this is your best chance of success.

Do you get any kernel messages (dmesg) when loading axnet_cs?

I would recommend you to build a new kernel for your system with
everything you need built-in and modules completely disabled.

Then insert the card and see if the axnet_cs driver is picked up and
initialized at all.


> I'm asking here because the problem seems to be related from the
> change from pcmcia-cs to pcmciautils.

I understand, but keep in mind that pcmcia-cs has not been replaced
by pcmciautils.

Much of what pcmcia-cs used to do is now within the kernel.
pcmciautils are much less involved. (A good thing since more generic
kernel stuff like udev is made available "for free" but yes, there is
certainly a migration cost for users.)

One of these things is binding drivers to cards. That used to be the
job of cardmgr, but now the kernel does it, through the device table
in each driver, which lists the cards that the particular driver
works for.

I would suggest adding an entry in the table for your card and
rebuilding the driver to see if it now binds to the card.

Insert the card and run lspcmcia -v or worst case pccardctl ident,
then we can help you with the proper values to put into the device
table for your card. (If you want to experiment yourself have a
look at /usr/src/linux/Documentation/pcmcia/devicetable.txt)


> P.S.: if you need more infos about quite the same problem (same
> error, similar cards):
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=400105
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=141739
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=264954
> http://cnycomputerservice.com/deblap.html

Aye. I suppose the intent was to add the neccessary IDs to the
axnet_cs device table as soon as bug reports came in, too bad
not many have shown up here. Let's hope we can get it working
for you!


//Peter