Quote Originally Posted by histo
... My 8139 works with the PHLAK Live CD distribution so its possible a problem with the driver that comes bundled with Knoppix.
Just tried Phlax on my notebook that has the problem NIC. Here are the curious results:

Phlax can boot without cheat codes (old versions of Knoppix could too, but newer versions hang without cheat codes).

Even though Phlax boots, it does not have network access when it does, same as old versions of Knoppix (including the version that did work on the notebook).

OK, here's where it gets strange. Under Knoppix I could always recover from the problem by doing a "sudo mii-tool -r" and then a netcardconfig. When I do this under Pklax Linux, the netcardconfig still fails! I can't get on the network this way!

Rebooting and using the same cheat codes that I use on the new versions of Knoppix (noscsi and acpi=off), it boots and comes up on the Internet with no problem.

If anyone knows enough about the internals of Linux to know why resetting the NIC and doing netcardconfig under Knopix might work but the same steps might fail under Phlax, when both distros clearly can run the NIC since they do with cheat codes, I would welcome hearing them.