Symptom: The Intel 8254x-based gigabit network adapter is not visible in
ifconfig, which is frustrating. Usually the hardware is well supported in Linux but sometimes you encounter unsupported/problematic hardware. BTW, the driver for this network controller isn't part of Windows 7 either.
Solution: This procedure was done with Slax Linux (running off of a USB drive), but will most likely be very similar for other distributions. The right thing to do is to download the
e1000e driver from Intel's website. You will probably need another computer for downloading that since the network interface isn't working yet. Put it on a USB stick and copy it to the computer you want the network interface working.
cd to that directory. There, follow these steps:
tar xf e100*
cd e100*
cd src
rmmod e1000e
make install
modprobe e1000e
ifconfig -a
Now you should see
eth0. You might have to run
alias eth0 e1000e to see it as
eth0, I did not have to do that.
This was obviously not invented by me, but rather reading forums and combining information. I thought I'd make a post about it since it's a pretty major problem. The main source for this post came form this
Slax forum thread.