>> Maybe you have an older firmware installed from a different package? >> Run emerge -p linux-firmware on that box to see if there's a blocker. > > linux-firmware is blocked by radeon-ucode and rt61-firmware,
I'm guessing that radeon-ucode and rt61-firmware and all the others are being deprecated in favour of linux-firmware, but i don't recall seeing an elog on it. > but now > that I look closer I realize that ifconfig doesn't show an eth0 > interface at all even though lspci -v shows: > > Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI > Express Gigabit Ethernet controller > ... > Kernel driver in use: r8169 > > Shouldn't the eth0 interface appear in ifconfig once the r8169 driver > is loaded? dmesg has no mention of eth0 or r8169. That's odd. Does that box still have the failed loading firmware error? Perhaps missing firmware stops eth0 from being created. I'd try installing linux-fireware and trying again (assuming you havent already). >>> I guess linux-firmware is a package released by the kernel folks >>> containing certain firmware blobs? It looks like rt73 is in there but >>> not b43. >> >> Maybe these? >> /lib/firmware/brcm/bcm4329-fullmac-4.bin >> /lib/firmware/brcm/bcm4329-fullmac-4.txt >> /lib/firmware/brcm/bcm43xx-0.fw >> /lib/firmware/brcm/bcm43xx_hdr-0.fw >> /lib/firmware/LICENCE.broadcom_bcm43xx > > Right again. The contents of /lib/firmware/b43 and /lib/firmware/brcm > are completely different, but you think either one will work with a > b43 device? The driver will know which one it wants. You could grep the source for the firmware file names to see which it pulls in.
