FAI kernels versus regular Debian kernels

[Gebhardt Thomas]

Hi,

On Thursday 12 July 2007 14:37, Henning Sprang wrote:
> In the meantime, I got this also working with fai 3.1.8 quite easily.
> Have to document it sometime... basically just take the "normal" Etch
> kernel and initrd (I got it working even without making a special
> initrd!) and call fai-chboot with the "right" arguments to use that
> initrd and image for some hosts. Needed this for installation of newer
> thinkpads with e1000 NICs

I'm also facing problems with an e1000 NICs, namely the onboard NICs
82566DC Chip on the DP35DP Intel Desktop Motherboard, PCI ID: 8086:29c4

As far as I can see

* the current (2.6.23.1 and 2.6.24.rc1) kernel tree e1000 driver 
(vers. 7.3.20-k2) does not support this NIC

* the current out-kernel e1000 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/e1000/)
driver (version 7.6.9.2) does support PCI ID: 8086:29c4. Therfore Ubuntu
gutsy ships some updated e1000.ko (or e1000-ich9.ko) driver module.

* the out-tree driver does not work as a drop-in replacement for the
in-kernel driver. It can, however, be compiled as a module seperately.

* therefore most straight forward way to fai-install a modern intel board is
to run an initrd fai kernel.

I see, that you already  found the "right" arguments to do that. Would you
mind making your kernel + initrd available to the public? This would
save me (and others) the time to configure, compile and debug.

Thanks, Thomas