No network LAN / ethernet in 4.4RC2

[Erdin Omanovic]

Hi everyone,

It seems that some ethernet cards are not supported in 4.4RC2 : already second PC where I have no network at all.

Is there something to check before concluding ?

Thank you in advance for advices

Cheers

[patpat]

I wonder if there is some issue with some of the kernel drivers being compressed and not correctly installed...
why don't you try a PXE boot; this way the net drivers are injected earlier during the boot process and if the card is not supported it will not boot up.
See here how:
http://vercot.com/~serva/an/NonWindowsPXE3.html

[Erdin Omanovic]

Thank you patpat, your idea is very interesting !

Im not used to PXE boot at all : should I first install serva on a windows installed PC ?

[Erdin Omanovic]

Also, I saw there is a complementary initial ram disk INITRD_N16.GZ (7.6 Mb) providing net drivers and a customized init script handling the network initialization and file retrieve.

Is it simply possible te replace the original initrd with this one ?

[Erdin Omanovic]

OK patpat, I tried with a windows PC as a serva, PXE boots great. Now I will test with the computer that has a network problem and will tell you the result.

Thanx again for your idea.

[Erdin Omanovic]

well, well no success. It seems that this way of booting alters the original one but also perturbs something in the graphics so that the result is rather unstable and unpredictable. I noticed a lost of wifi drivers and unfortunately no success with ethernet.

somebody else tried too ?

[patpat]

The INITRD_N16.GZ is a "complementary" initrd; it has to be loaded after the original initrd.img.
This new file contains the Android-x86 network drivers and a custom made init script in order to make possible
a PXE boot with HTTP retrieval of the Android-x86 squashfs images.
I have tested this PXE boot system in many laptops and never got any problem with the graphic system.
Please consider that there's a known issue that if Android-x86 goes to sleep you get a black screen and only a key
combination can bring it back; most of the people thinks it is gone and reboots; What I do is just setting the time for not going to sleep.
The PXE approach does not touch the graphic system at all; probably you are just running Android-x86 in a
PC that the graphics are not well supported; have you tried PXE booting the VESA option with Serva?

[Erdin Omanovic]

I agree of course with your analysis Pat, there's no pb with initrd+, but somehow it might just related to the support of install. Network is a little bit risky I guess :)

I was searching a little and found out that my ethernet pb could be related to the fact it was installed on a fat32 (i.e. necesarily read-only) and that netcfg eth0 is down.

I changed eth0 manually (@ip, gw, dns) but saw then that dhcpcd-run-hooks was 555 and not 755. And of course, impossible to chmod as it's fat32 (read-only).

[Erdin Omanovic]

what's to put in linux line to set the time for not going to sleep ?

same for vga option, i saw video=resolution, vga=resolution and gfxpayload=resolutionxDept,resolution syntaxes but no a reference list explaining all of this.

[patpat]

The 755 issue is an interesting finding.
Unfortunately at the moment there's not a kernel command line parameter for setting the sleeping time.
I tried to find that parameter for editing it from the init script before booting but so far couldn't find it.
I can say the same for the rest of video options; no good info available.

[Erdin Omanovic]

Well it's not 755 issue as I reinstalled it on ext4 and could modify the permissions for dhcpcd-run-hooks but there's still same problem.

netcfg shows that eth0 is down and eth1 is up, which is an anomaly as i have eth0 connectet and eth1 not connected.

Changing it manually (dhcpcd eth0 resolved ip) didn't solve the no internet pb. No success with setprop net.dns1 8.8.8.8 too.

Tried also route add default gw <ip> but it changed nothing.

I tried to put those in /etc/init.sh and reboot but doing this was a mistake : android was lost (boot stuck)

I believe android is somehow "confused" with two ethernets that are in my motherboard and no way to solve it.

[Antony Stone]

On Monday 04 August 2014 at 09:43:17 (EU time), Erdin Omanovic wrote:

> netcfg shows that eth0 is down and eth1 is up, which is an anomaly as i
> have eth0 connectet and eth1 not connected.

> I believe android is somehow "confused" with two ethernets that are in my
> motherboard and no way to solve it.

Can you disable eth1 in the Bios, so that Android only finds the one with the
connected cable and calls it eth0?

Antony.

--
"A person lives in the UK, but commutes to France daily for work.
He belongs in the UK."

- From UK Revenue & Customs notice 741, page 13, paragraph 3.5.1
- http://tinyurl.com/o7gnm4

Please reply to the list;
please *don't* CC me.

[Erdin Omanovic]

Thank you Antony for your suggestion I'll give it a try.

Otherwise, each command is accepted except this one :

ifconfig route add default gw ... dev eth0

it gives me

error: SIOCSIFADDR (No such device)

so eth0 is up but somewhere hasn't existence....

[Antony Stone]

On Monday 04 August 2014 at 11:25:38 (EU time), Erdin Omanovic wrote:

> Thank you Antony for your suggestion I'll give it a try.
> Otherwise, each command is accepted except this one :
> ifconfig route add default gw ... dev eth0
> it gives me
> error: SIOCSIFADDR (No such device)

What happens if you give it the IP address of the gateway but don't specify
which device to find it on (let it work that out for itself)?

route add default gw aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd


Antony.

--
There are infinitely many other ways to set up an alternative universe: they
range from having 101 dimensions and totally different laws to being identical
with our universe except for 6 atoms of dysprosium in the core of the star
Procyon that change into iodine on Thursdays.

[Erdin Omanovic]

All commands with route finished with the same error.

But bingo : disabling LAN1 in the bios made internet working. Thank you very much for idea, Antony !!!

Now I see other issues with video as for example Clash of Clans stopped in lounching.

Is there some specific video mode to check like VESA or other ?