topic Re: Installing HP Broadcom (tg3) driver on RHEL5.3 in Operating System - Linux

Installing HP Broadcom (tg3) driver on RHEL5.3

wobbe — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:25:32 GMT

I'm trying to install the latest broadcom (tg3) driver on a HP DL380G6 but it's failing with the following error.

error: failed build dependencies.
kernel-devel-i386 = 2.6.18.128.el5 is needed by hp-tg3.99-5.i386

I dont have a kernel-devel-i386 on my cdrom.
But I do have kernel-devel-2.6.18-128.el5.i686.rpm and kernel-PAE-devel-2.6.18-128.el5.i686.rpm installed.

Any ideas?

Re: Installing HP Broadcom (tg3) driver on RHEL5.3

Matti_Kurkela — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:36:10 GMT

Depending on whether you use the PAE kernel or not, either kernel-devel-2.6.18-128.el5.i686.rpm or kernel-PAE-devel-2.6.18-128.el5.i686.rpm is the correct one.

The difference of i386 vs. i686 comes from the fact that in Linux kernel, the i386 was originally used to mean "any supported 32-bit x86 processor (= i386 or above)".

RedHat packages its kernels as "i686" because RedHat's kernel configuration now includes optimizations and features which require a CPU of Pentium II or above feature level to work correctly.

MK

Re: Installing HP Broadcom (tg3) driver on RHEL5.3

wobbe — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:48:40 GMT

Thanks for explaining the i686 naming convertion MK. I run a PAE kernel but could it be a problem that I have both PAE and non PAE devel packages installed?

Re: Installing HP Broadcom (tg3) driver on RHEL5.3

Steven E. Protter — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:36:35 GMT

Shalom,

Broadcomm drivers are built into the kernel.

There is no need to install third party drivers into RHEL 5.3 for any broadcomm cards installed in G6 servers.

SEP

Re: Installing HP Broadcom (tg3) driver on RHEL5.3

wobbe — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:07:16 GMT

I know they are build into the kernel but I want to try the latest HP driver because we are having strange connection issues.

Re: Installing HP Broadcom (tg3) driver on RHEL5.3

wobbe — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:27:47 GMT

If I add the option --target=i686 it start but it's not a success. See atachement.

Re: Installing HP Broadcom (tg3) driver on RHEL5.3

wobbe — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:50:19 GMT

Needed to add the kernel version to complete the rpmbuild. RPM has been installed but how do I know if the new NIC driver is beeing used.

Re: Installing HP Broadcom (tg3) driver on RHEL5.3

wobbe — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:48:19 GMT

I've edited /etc/modprobe.conf but I can't get the tg3 module working/loaded. The network card is still using the bnx2 module after a restart.

Re: Installing HP Broadcom (tg3) driver on RHEL5.3

wobbe — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 10:25:10 GMT

Turned out I was trying to install the wrong package. According to my notes I did:

rpm -ivh hp-netxtreme2-5.2.27-5.src.rpm
rpm -ivh hp-netxtreme-bnx2id-5.2.27-5.noarch.rpm

/usr/src/redhat/rpmbuild --target=i686 --bb SPECS/hp-netxtreme2.spec --define "KVER 2.6.18-128.el5PAE"

/etc/init.d/network stop
rmmod bnx2

cd /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i686
rpm -ivh kmod-hp-netxtreme2-PAE-5.2.27-5.i686.rpm

Reboot.