Broadcom NIC on Kernel 2.4.18

[Eric Jon Rostetter]

Quoting Adrian Walker <adriandwalker at gmail.com>:

> Newbie here....  Just bought a Poweredge 850.

Congrats.

> Dell and Broadcom seem to have set up a neat catch 22.

No, you have set up a catch 22 by buying a new machine and trying
to run a discontinued, unsupported OS on it.  RH 8 with the 2.4.18
kernel is very, very old, and long since dropped by Red Hat and Dell.

> I have to use RedHat 8.0 with kernel 2.4.18, to keep compatibility with
> other software.

Only problem is there are no security updates for RHL 8.0 for years
now.

> The Dell install software only works with later Redhat versions.

Yes, since RH 8.0 support was dropped by Red Hat and everyone else
years ago.

> So, I went to the Broadcom site and downloaded their tg3 driver source code.
> It does not compile!  (The Broadcom site confirms that "the driver may not
> compile on kernels older that 2.4.24")
>
> Does anyone know of a workaround please?

You need to use the bcm5700 driver.  Probably it is in the kernel still,
just not the default driver anymore, as the tg3 driver is much better.

The tg3 uses kernel code only available in newer kernels (introduced
in RHL 9 I think), so it can not work with earlier kernels.  The bcm5700
drivers should work fine though.

> Thanks in advance,    -- Adrian

-- 
Eric Rostetter
The Department of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin

Go Longhorns!