Bootup error messages -AND- No internet connection

[rcpilot]

Hello all,

This is my first experience with Knoppix and this forum, so please excuse my ignorance!

When I boot up using my Knoppix 3.9 Live CD, everything seems to be fine until the following appears immediately after "USB found, managed by hotplug.":

Firewire found, managed by hotplug: (Re-)scanning devices... Done.
modprobe: FATAL: Could not read '/lib/modules/2.6.11/kernal/drives/input/evdev.ko': Not a directory

modprobe: FATAL: Could not read '/lib/modules/2.6.11/kernal/drives/input/evdev.ko': Not a directory

Autoconfiguring devices... Done.

I don't have any firewire devices and after Knoppix finishes loading I can't get to the internet.

I have broadband service via cable modem (Motorola Surfboard SB100). It in turn is connected to a router (Linksys WRT54GS). It in turn is connected to my PC via an ethernet card (Microsoft MN-130). This configuration works with Windows XP Home Edition just fine.

What do I do to begin resolving this problem?

Thanks.

[UnderScore]

Knoppix boots with a splash screen. At that splash screen you can enter codes which will force Knoppix to do certain things. Theses codes are known as Cheat Codes. To turn off firewire, boot with:
knoppix nofirewire

As for those error messages, they are not related to firewire but to input devices like mice, keyboards or joysticks. Not so helpful but see http://www.linuxhq.com/kernel/v2.6/1.../input/evdev.c

[Harry Kuhman]

The firewire messages are confusing false detections that have been showing up in recent versions. They should not affect you (although there are some kown bugs, particularly in 3.9). Welcome to the Knoppix community.

[rcpilot]

I rebooted using Knoppix nofirewire and the firewire-related message went away. The modprob messages remain.

I read somewhere in the forum about trying ifconfig at the command prompt. I did and all I got was the loopback response. I copied the response into an OpenOffice Writer document, but I couldn't figure out how to save it to my hard drive for retrieval after rebooting to Windows XP. I tried to print it but apparently Knoppix can's see my printer.

So far I'm batting zero! I have a lot to learn.

[rcpilot]

By the way...

In my original post I stated that the cable modem is a Motorola Surfboard SB100. Actually, the model number is SB4100. Typo.

[Harry Kuhman]

Don't try to write anything to an XP partition under Knoppix (or any Linux). Doing so will corrupt the NTFS partition. To save a file you need a FAT partition, a floppy, USB flash drive, an email account where you could mail it, or any number of other "tricks", but don't try to force Knoppix to write to an NTFS partition.

I don't know why Knoppix isn't seeing your Linksys router and getting its DHCP setup during the boot process. But my suspicious mind suspects it's due to the brand name of your NIC. NICs are dirt cheap (usually under $5, sometimes free). If you have a spare NIC, try it. If you can steal one of a different brand from another system, do that. If all else fails, try buying an inexpensive one (just a simple 10/100, don't spend more for a 10/100/1000 NIC). Put the Knoppix CD in the system before you shut it down. Power down your system (remove the power cord, don't just turn it off), replace the NIC and then boot into the Knoppix CD before you ever let Windows run again. See if it doesn't recognize the new alternate brand NIC right away and connect to the Linksys and the Internet during the boot process.

[UnderScore]

There are ways to narrow down device and/or networking problems. A lot of the output will not make sense to you. That is OK. What we need from you is to identify the network card via the 'sudo lspci' command. It should identify Then you need to use the 'sudo ifconfig -a' command to see if there is a ethernet device (such as eth0). If there is a eth0 device then use the command 'sudo netcardconfig' to try to give it an IP address. If there is no eth0 device, then we use the 'sudo lsmod' command to get a listing of the loaded drivers. Look in the listing & see if it loaded the driver for your network card which based on my research uses the tulip driver. If the tulip driver is not loaded, then we force it to load with the command 'sudo modprobe tulip' then run 'sudo lsmod' again to see if it has been loaded. If it has loaded then run the 'sudo netcardconfig' command. If it has not then we will have to try another method.
Please write down any output or anything that might be important.

*All this may or may not work since the network card is a Microsoft network card & it seems MS has done something that prevents it from working normally in Linux. Tthere is a workaround to get it to work but it is both beyond your skillset and requires a hard drive install of Linux **

Example of the commands & the output
sudo lscpi
which will spit out a listing of the system's PCI devices

root@dualcrush:~# sudo lspci
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (r
ev 02)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev
 02)
0000:00:04.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
0000:00:04.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
0000:00:04.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
0000:00:04.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
0000:00:06.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AHA-2940U2/U2W / 7890/7891
0000:00:0a.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 05
)
0000:00:0a.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! MIDI/Game Port (rev
 05)
0000:00:0b.0 Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology, Inc. 20269 (re
v 02)
0000:00:0c.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905B 100BaseTX [Cyclone] (r
ev 24)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV15 [GeForce2 GTS/Pr
o] (rev a3)
root@dualcrush:~#

sudo ifconfig -a
which will output all detected network devices

root@dualcrush:~# sudo ifconfig -a
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:10:5A:05:BC:FB
          inet addr:192.168.1.51  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::210:5aff:fe05:bcfb/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:40171 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:23166 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:46965304 (44.7 MiB)  TX bytes:2113684 (2.0 MiB)
          Interrupt:129 Base address:0x9400

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:83 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:83 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:5352 (5.2 KiB)  TX bytes:5352 (5.2 KiB)

sit0      Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4
          NOARP  MTU:1480  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

root@dualcrush:~#

sudo lsmod
this will list the drivers that are currently loaded (In my case the network card's driver is 3c59x)

root@dualcrush:~# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
nfsd                  203648  8
exportfs                7104  1 nfsd
lockd                  64968  2 nfsd
sunrpc                159524  2 nfsd,lockd
ipv6                  281764  16
pcspkr                  3884  0
tsdev                   7616  0
mousedev               10736  0
evdev                   9824  0
psmouse                20616  0
floppy                 62608  0
parport_pc             37796  0
parport                43272  1 parport_pc
emu10k1_gp              3808  0
gameport                5120  1 emu10k1_gp
snd_emu10k1           102056  0
snd_rawmidi            26084  1 snd_emu10k1
snd_pcm_oss            55912  0
snd_mixer_oss          20384  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm               102948  2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              27492  1 snd_pcm
snd_seq_device          8456  2 snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi
snd_ac97_codec         70884  1 snd_emu10k1
snd_page_alloc         12008  2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm
snd_util_mem            4832  1 snd_emu10k1
snd_hwdep               9764  1 snd_emu10k1
snd                    59620  10 snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_o
ss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_seq_device,snd_ac97_codec,snd_util_mem,snd_hwdep
soundcore              10880  1 snd
aic79xx               311580  0
pci_hotplug            35708  0
intel_agp              23072  1
uhci_hcd               34096  0
usbcore               122148  3 uhci_hcd
sg                     40288  0
aic7xxx               208856  0
3c59x                  40424  0
agpgart                35436  1 intel_agp
capability              4744  0
commoncap               7552  1 capability
sr_mod                 17764  0
scsi_mod              127972  4 aic79xx,sg,aic7xxx,sr_mod
ide_cd                 43232  0
cdrom                  41148  2 sr_mod,ide_cd
genrtc                 10616  0
ext3                  129704  6
jbd                    70584  1 ext3
mbcache                10340  1 ext3
ide_generic             1632  0
piix                   13824  1
ide_disk               19648  11
pdc202xx_new           11260  1
ide_core              142556  5 ide_cd,ide_generic,piix,ide_disk,pdc202xx_new
unix                   31156  20
font                    8544  0
vesafb                  6880  0
cfbcopyarea             4096  1 vesafb
cfbimgblt               3264  1 vesafb
cfbfillrect             4000  1 vesafb
root@dualcrush:~#

[rcpilot]

Harry, my hard drives are both set up as FAT32. No NTFS. Is this okay?

UnderScore, I'll give these commands a try. Maybe I can write to a floppy.

[Harry Kuhman]

Harry, my hard drives are both set up as FAT32. No NTFS. Is this okay?

Good for you. As far as Linux is concerned it's great. Most XP users have NTFS partitions.

Knoppix still defaults to opening the FAT partitions as read-only. It's part of the "do no harm" approach of a live CD and for new users who are going to test drive Linux on a PC. But with FAT partitions you can safely over-ride this (just take care not to destroy files after you do). You can do it the hard way with the mount command or the easy way. To do it the easy way find the fat partition icons on yoor desktop. Right click on one. Select the actions ... sub menu from the list that pos up. I suspect you can figure the rest out from there.

[rcpilot]

Here are the results of the commands you gave me to run, UnderScore. I was finally able to get them onto a USB thumbdrive...

knoppix@0[knoppix]$ sudo lspci
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8366/A/7 [Apollo KT266/A/333]
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8366/A/7 [Apollo KT266/A/333 AGP]
0000:00:09.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 50)
0000:00:09.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 50)
0000:00:09.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 51)
0000:00:0c.0 Parallel controller: Lava Computer mfg Inc Lava Parallel
0000:00:0d.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 07)
0000:00:0d.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! MIDI/Game Port (rev 07)
0000:00:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Microsoft Corporation: Unknown device 0002 (rev 11)
0000:00:0f.0 Serial controller: 5610 56K FaxModem 56K FaxModem Model 5610 (rev 01)
0000:00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233A ISA Bridge
0000:00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
0000:00:11.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 23)
0000:00:11.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 23)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV25 [GeForce4 Ti 4600] (rev a3)

knoppix@0[knoppix]$ sudo ifconfig -a
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:22 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:22 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:1100 (1.0 KiB)  TX bytes:1100 (1.0 KiB)

knoppix@0[knoppix]$ sudo lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
snd_mixer_oss          18688  0
snd                    46308  1 snd_mixer_oss
autofs4                18820  1
emu10k1                72196  1
sound                  71812  1 emu10k1
soundcore              11104  4 snd,emu10k1,sound
ac97_codec             20108  1 emu10k1
via_agp                11264  1
agpgart                30512  1 via_agp
emu10k1_gp              6912  0
gameport                7552  1 emu10k1_gp
via_ircc               22036  0
irda                  118584  1 via_ircc
crc_ccitt               5888  1 irda
parport_pc             38596  0
parport                33480  1 parport_pc
8250                   41692  0
serial_core            21120  1 8250
evdev                  11008  0
tsdev                   9664  0
joydev                 11840  0
usbhid                 42176  0
pcmcia                 21776  0
yenta_socket           21896  0
rsrc_nonstatic         12160  1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core            42272  3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
video                  18308  0
thermal                14984  0
processor              24552  1 thermal
fan                     7300  0
container               7296  0
button                  7168  0
battery                12420  0
ac                      7556  0
genrtc                 12060  0
unionfs               109944  1
cloop                  18848  1
usb_storage            63296  0
ub                     18332  0
ohci_hcd               21896  0
uhci_hcd               31376  0
ehci_hcd               31752  0
usbcore               101496  7 usbhid,usb_storage,ub,ohci_hcd,uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd