[gentoo-user] boot-time message about nic firmware patch

[gentoo-user] boot-time message about nic firmware patch

[waltdnes]

  The last 4 lines from dmesg...

[    4.299946] r8169 0000:04:00.0 eth0: unable to load firmware patch rtl_nic/rtl8168e-3.fw (-2)
[    4.312766] r8169 0000:04:00.0 eth0: link down
[    4.312784] r8169 0000:04:00.0 eth0: link down
[    6.019910] r8169 0000:04:00.0 eth0: link up

  It works.  I'm sending this email via that nic, but I wonder if it
could cause problems down the road.  Here's what "lspci -v" shows for
the nic.

04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 07)
        Subsystem: Dell Device 0581
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 43
        I/O ports at e000 [size=256]
        Memory at f0004000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 01
        Capabilities: [b0] MSI-X: Enable- Count=4 Masked-
        Capabilities: [d0] Vital Product Data
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [140] Virtual Channel
        Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number **-**-**-**-**-**-**-**
        Kernel driver in use: r8169

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

[gentoo-user] Re: boot-time message about nic firmware patch

[walt]

On 05/17/2013 08:04 AM, waltdnes@waltdnes.org wrote:
>   The last 4 lines from dmesg...
> 
> [    4.299946] r8169 0000:04:00.0 eth0: unable to load firmware patch rtl_nic/rtl8168e-3.fw (-2)

I had the same problem and took hours to figure it out because it's
such a silly problem I didn't believe it at first :)

The problem is with the firmware path in the kernel sources.  Turns out
that you can't include that "rtl_nic" in the module's name, so you need
to change the default path /lib64/firmware to /lib64/firmware/rtl_nic
and remove it from the module's name.

Re: [gentoo-user] boot-time message about nic firmware patch

[Paul Hartman]

On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 10:04 AM,  <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
>   The last 4 lines from dmesg...
>
> [    4.299946] r8169 0000:04:00.0 eth0: unable to load firmware patch rtl_nic/rtl8168e-3.fw (-2)
> [    4.312766] r8169 0000:04:00.0 eth0: link down
> [    4.312784] r8169 0000:04:00.0 eth0: link down
> [    6.019910] r8169 0000:04:00.0 eth0: link up
>
>   It works.  I'm sending this email via that nic, but I wonder if it
> could cause problems down the road.  Here's what "lspci -v" shows for
> the nic.

You need to install the package linux-firmware, it contains that file
and others. Then the message should go away! :)