Ethernet not working, a weird one!

[James Homuth]

You did throw the driver module into /etc/module.autoload.d/kernel-2.6,
right...? 

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Jayson Smith
Sent: July 25, 2009 12:47 PM
To: Speakup
Subject: Ethernet not working, a weird one!

Hi,

     For several years, I have had a Linux system running Gentoo, without
issue. This is an approx. 1.8GHZ desktop, and I'm not running any GUI, it's
strictly console.
     On June 18, lightning struck our home. Among other things, it appears
to have destroyed every device connected to our Ethernet network at the time
of the hit. This included the 3Com 3C905C NIC in my Linux box. I found
another such card and installed it. No joy. Even though the kernel driver is
installed, the system refuses to recognize the card. It is listed in the
output of lspci, though. Just in case this other card was also toast (not
likely, since it was sitting in a drawer at the time of the lightning hit) I
installed a Realtek Ethernet NIC and recompiled the kernel with its driver
installed. No joy. However, the real kicker is that a System Rescue CD which
includes Speakup can access the Internet using the 3C905 card I installed,
and which my Linux system would not recognize. Therefore, I know the card,
and more importantly, the motherboard are working okay. It's just something
messed up on the software end. What could this be?
     If I end up having to rebuild from scratch, what is a currently good
distro for console only, no GUI Linux that supports Speakup? If I were
rebuilding anyway, I would strongly consider switching from Gentoo to an
easier to maintain distro.
Thanks for any help.
Jayson

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