Realtek RTL8168/8111 NIC

[richard_chapman]

Hi,

I note that toracat has suggested you try the dkms-r8168 driver - and I would recommend that you try this and please let us know how it goes. I have the same nic - and I am using the dkms-r1000 driver. I do have it working - but have some strange issues with the driver and/or nic. I have started another thread discussing some of my problems. If you can't get the r8168 driver working - and are desperate to use this nic - let me know - and I can probably help you get the r1000 driver working. It might have stabilised now - but I wont be sure for a while yet.

Regards.

Richard.

[wolfy]

[quote]
richard_chapman wrote:
Hi,

I note that toracat has suggested you try the dkms-r8168 driver - and I would recommend that you try this and please let us know how it goes. I have the same nic - and I am using the dkms-r1000 driver. I do have it working - but have some strange issues with the driver and/or nic. I have started another thread discussing some of my problems. If you can't get the r8168 driver working - and are desperate to use this nic - let me know - and I can probably help you get the r1000 driver working. It might have stabilised now - but I wont be sure for a while yet.

Regards.

Richard.[/quote]

Richard, do yourself a favor and do NOT use the r1000 driver. It is the correct one for R8169 but it does not work OK with R8168, despite leaving the initial impression that it does.
However my dkms-r8168 package is now available from rpmforge too, so all you have to do to test it is (assuming you have already installed the repo)
[i]yum install dkms-r8168 --enablerepo=rpmforge[/i]

[richard_chapman]

Thanks Wolly. I eventually was forced to do myself a favour...:-). A bunch of updates came through including:

kernel, dkms, dkms-r1000

and my centos 5 system stopped working. It said it couldn't find eth0 hardware. I downloaded the dkms-r8168 rpm pacjage you referred to using an XP machine and transferred it over with a flash drive. I just clicked on it with the gui - and everything started working again. Marvellous.

Thanks for the advice. I was reluctant because I had tried the 8168 driers before without any luck - but a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then...

Richard.

[NedSlider]

Hi Richard,

I also have a board with onboard RTL8168/8111 (Gigabyte P35-DS4) so I'd be very interested to hear your experiences with this driver. I too had a quick play with it when I first got the board but quickly abandoned it in favour of a pci nic due to some stability issues back then. I guess the driver may have reached a higher level of stability now though so would be interested to revisit it if you have a positive experience with it :-)

Regards,

Ned

PS - any news if the dkms-r8168 driver will be updated to the newer 8.005 driver release (Jan 2008) or is this not relevant?

[richard_chapman]

Hi Ned

Sorry for the long delay - but I wanted to get a feel for the stability of the dkms-r8168 driver with the Realtek chip set. The answer seems to be so far so good. So far I have only tried it with the non-xen Centos 5.1 kernel, and it has been very solid. I can't tell you anything about whether and when the new R8168 driver version will be included in the dkms release.

Regards

Richard.

[richard_chapman]

Hi again Ned

Just noticed that the DKMS-R8168 module I have installed is:
dkms-r8168 8.005.00-1
Not sure when it installed - but I think it must have been a while back - so I assume this is the driver version you were waiting for.

Regards

Richard.

[NedSlider]

Thanks Richard for the feedback :-)

Yes, I believe the 8.005 was updated in RPMForge not long after I posted.

[MikeStromberg]

I have the identical problem on the same motherboard. I can't figure out what I'm doing here.

Following the instructions that have been shown so far still doesn't work.

For instance, one of the steps for installing rpmforge is shown as

rpm --import http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt

Can't do this if I don't have an internet connection!

I'm an absolute beginner with this and I'm trying to set up a machine at work, so any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

[AlanBartlett]

[quote]Can't do this if I don't have an internet connection![/quote]

Well, [b]Mike[/b], you must have some form of internet connection to access this forum! :lol:

What you will have to do is to go to http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/ and copy [b]RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt[/b] to a floppy disk, CD-RW, DVD-RW, USB memory stick, etc, and then take that removable medium to your [b]CentOS[/b] system and import it from there, etc, etc. Tedious, I realise but it has been done by others in the past.

Either that or obtain - borrow/buy - an inexpensive NIC and do as [b]Ned[/b] suggests in post #4.

HTH.
Alan.

[wolfy]

I have just finished compiling RHEL's most recent kernel source packages (those shipped in RHEL 5.2). My tests using a previous test release have shown that these new kernels include support for r8168 (via the r8169 driver) so if anyone is willing to give a test and try using my experimental (I say experimental because they are by no means endorsed by the Centos project) packages just let me know and I will make them available + offer the support needed to safely install and use.
The benefit is that the need for the dkms suite / other custom network module will disappear.