So I've been running Linux Mint 11PPC on my iBook and Aluminium G4 PowerBook since last year but haven't touched my machines in three or four months. Did "apt-get update" and "apt-get upgrade" and downloaded/installed 600MB of updates. My problem is after rebooting my Ethernet system on both laptops doesn't work (both wireless and wired). Looking at the connectivity icon in the bottom-right of the Taskbar I see "Wired Network - device not managed" and Wireless Network - device not ready". Basically Ethernet is nuked when it worked perfectly prior to the upgrade.

Needless to say I'm not happy. I don't want to completely reinstall Linux Mint 11PPC from CD - is there any way to either roll-back the upgrade or re-install the Ethernet subsystem (download .deb files from somewhere and transfer over via USB stick to my "dead" Ethernet subsystems)?

I've been using Linux since the mid-90's, this is the first time I've ever seen this.

Much thanks for any help on this.

can you post the output of:

erms@PPCSTAR
~ $ cat /etc/network/interfaces
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.15
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255
gateway 192.168.1.1
# dns-* options are implemented by the resolvconf package, if installed
dns-nameservers 192.168.1.1
erms@PPCSTAR

Many thanks for any help.

aha, there you go. Did you set those settings there ? If not, I would disable them. Change the file into this and reboot and see what happens:

@JD:

It doesn't seem that the code you posted is that different from what was posted by the OP?? Did you mean to post something else or is that what you meant to paste in the "code" box?

e.e.p.

I added a # in front of most lines...

Ah, so you did . . . . OK, hope it works out for reviving busted ethernet.

e.e.p.

I have edited and REMed out the lines per above have rebooted. I have rebooted and have the exact problem, my Ethernet subsystem is still nuked with the same message in the Taskbar. It seems my Ethernet hardware is still uninitialized. Is the a "modprobe" command I can use to poll the Ethernet card (wired and wireless).

Again thanks for your help. I have not modified Ethernet in any way (DHCP vs. Static IP) and to have an update/upgrade nuke Ethernet is frustrating. Hope this isn't happening to anyone else - but on two machines of mine? What are the odds?

Cheers!!

you can have a look if it finds the card with dmesg. I am not sure which module is needed.

Folks:

Just to follow up on this thread, I "sudo apt-get update/upgrade" --ed the iMac running straight Deb Wheezy in my iMac G4 800MHz for a substantial number of packages 386??? took about an hour. I was half expecting to wind up with crushed ethernet, here was even a question -- did I want to upgrade the "initd/networking" file?? And the default answer was "N" for No, but I put "Y" for yes before I realized what I might be doing, and there was also some change to "networking manager" . . . anyway, rebooted and all appears to be fine with the ethernet . . . . I also have an iBook G4 that has MintPPC loaded, but there has been a problem and there isn't any extra disc space so I don't think I could do any updates on it to check to see if this is an iBook related issue . . . or some other issue . . . . On the iMac in Debian, the update seems to have gone OK--I'm typing this email in IW as I . . . uh, type.

e.e.p.