Hello,

I'm trying to install Scientific Linux 7 on my VIA ARTiGO A1100, which used to run Scientific Linux 6.7 with no problems.

Now, I can boot into the Scientific Linux 7 live environment, but it is having trouble detecting the VIA VT6122 gigabit ethernet controller. The installer says there are no networking devices, but lspci shows:Entering ifconfig -a shows only lo, and no eth0.

This used to work in Scientific Linux 6, so surely the newer kernel in Scientific Linux 7 should work with it, too? What can I do to troubleshoot this? Thank you.

unfortunately it doesn't work like this.
your VIA hardware is ancient, and it's possible that support has been dropped.
btw, VIA on linux has always been bad news for me.

you have to somehow find out which driver you need, and if it's already installed and recognizing your net controller.

the first part, i don't know.
the second part:

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Thank you ondoho for your quick reply. I'm sad to hear that support might have been dropped!!!

To test if that was the case, I also tried live images of Debian and Manjaro, both of which run Linux kernel versions of up to the 4.1x series. And for both distros the NIC was detected and set up fine! Scientific Linux 7 uses Linux kernel versions that are between SL 6.7 and the current Debian and Manjaro kernels. Does that mean support might have been dropped and somehow re-instated????? Or does this suggest that the problem is *not* support for these VIA chipsets being dropped from the kernel??

I'll also try your lspci -k | grep -iA5 net suggestion. What does the command mean anway???

i did not say it is necessarily like that.
you will get more definite answers by researching this yourself.
always have a look at the date of any online resource.
be especially wary, because this is a very old device, as computers go. older than 10 years.

you got me a little confused.
what kernel version are you using now, when the card is not recognized?

lspci lists info about your pci devices.
read "man lspci" to find out what the -k switch is for.

grep helps you to find what you're looking for in large output.
"man grep"

the thing in the middle: "|" is a pipe symbol, one of the best inventions since sticky tape. it allows you to pipe the output of one command (lspci) into another command (grep).

edit:
i think it's safe to assume that th rest of your machine is equally old, so you should start using distros geared towards old hardware.

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1st. Have you md5sum checked the Scientific Linux 7 iso you downloaded?
2nd. Have you thought of running the kernel Scientific Linux 6 came with inside of version 7?

With that statement. I am kinda leaning to a corrupted iso download myself. Hence my md5sum question.

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http://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/VIA_VELOCITY.html

Did you try and load the driver manually?

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Hello,

Thanks for your replies. I tried other Scientific Linux 7 ISOs, but none were able to correctly set up the NIC. I agree with ondoho that maybe this machine is just too old and I need to look for a lighter distribution. Eventually I settled with a fairly slimmed down Manjaro, and so far it is working well.

Thank you for your suggestions!

Hi...

I'm glad you found a solution. If you would, please mark this thread as "SOLVED" by clicking on "Thread Tools" directly above your initial post. Thanks!

Regards...

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i did not say that.
i think there's a difference between a distro geared towards old hardware and a lightweight distro.
the first is most certainly also the second, but the second is not necessarily the first.

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I apologise if I misunderstood you. Nonetheless you did help me settle on a distro that worked. I hope you also accept my thanks!!

penyuan, of course i accept your thanks.
my last comment was not meant to be negative - just want to make sure i'm not misunderstood.
my own hardware is pretty old (but never too old).