Remove modem drivers

[sh00der]

Hi, I recently installed RH 8.0 as my intro to Linux and unfortunately it hasn't gone smoothly. I had a modem based on the Intel 536ep chipset and it worked but seemed to interfere with my sound i.e. everything locked up if I deactiviated the modem in Network Device Control while music was playing. I have upgraded the kernel to 2.4.20 and swapped out the modem for an external serial jobby that is loads better but the last item on boot-up is '536ep boot' and I get an error that the sound device hasn't been found but the sound works.
How can I totally clear out the old modem driver? Surely it can't be that difficult. Please help, thanks.

[siplus]

uh, i'm sure other will have to respond, but the only thing i can think of is the network config gui untility thing that gnome has. under the second tab i think it has your hardware devices. just deleted the modem's...

i'm sure that's not all of it, so, i'm kinda wondering too: how do you remove drivers?

[sh00der]

I seem to have got rid of the parts of the driver that were causing the error but I don't know if I've managed to get rid of everything. I'm a bit wary because when I was using windows I often had uninstalled drivers hanging around with the sole purpose of causing irritation, and that was with the official uninstall method.

I moved some files out of /usr/src/linux-2.4.20-4.ll.acpi/drivers/net

and some out of
/etc/rc.d/init.d

The files I moved were
536ep-boot, 536epcore.o and 536ep.o but I can't remember which ones went where, sorry.

It's working at the moment, but it would be nice to know if there is something I've missed here, thanks.

[Void Main]

If this "driver" was installed from an RPM then you should have removed it with an "rpm" command. The file in /etc/rc.d/init.d would have been a service script. To just prevent it from running on bootup you could have:

# chkconfig 536ep-boot off

To see what RPM package that file belonged to you could have done:

# rpm -qif /etc/rc.d/init.d/536ep-boot

And if the name of the package returned was "536ep" you could have removed it (and all files associated with it) by:

# rpm -e 536ep

But this does not sound like something that comes with Red Hat. Did you install something after installing Red Hat to get this modem driver? If so, what was it and where did you get it? If you installed this after the fact and didn't install it from an RPM then the above rpm commands would not work.

[sh00der]

This driver was installed after installing RedHat with a driver for the Intel modem that was downloaded from www.linmodems.technion.ac.il. I tried a 'make uninstall' from within the directory that the file was unpacked to but no joy.
Do you think I've missed some files then?

[Void Main]

I think the only thing you really had to do was:

# chkconfig 536ep-boot off

The above would not have removed the associated files but it would have stopped it from trying to load the modem driver at boot time. You probably now have some broken symbolic links in /etc/rc.d/rc3.d though /etc/rc.d/rc5.d directories (unless you removed them as well). If you didn't remove the symbolic links I would expect some sort of error message on boot up about a file not found.

[sh00der]

Void main, you were right about the symbolic links in the /etc/rc.d directories but I didn't see any error messages about missing files. I've deleted the symbolic links along with the /dev/536ep device.
Everything appears to be working alright, but is there a way to run a health check or some diagnostics to check it out?

Also, I realize now that it was stupid but I ran kudzu from a command line without using the probe safely option , it went crazy for a while and removed the RedHat icon from my panel. I got my panel sorted out but I think I may have lost some links from the 'start here' virtual folder. They're not important but I'm wondering if I could have affected some other things that haven't surfaced yet and I would prefer to get them back if it is simple to do. Thanks for all your help.

[Void Main]

Health check? "rpm -V packagename" on every package is about the only thing I know of as far as a health check.

Regarding kudzu it only messes with hardware so if it removed something it would have been because you don't have the hardware to support it. I have only seen it change the /etc/fstab personally. It would be hard to give advice about getting something back when you don't know what you are missing.

[sh00der]

When I ran kudzu the screen started flashing and a couple of windows appeared, then the redhat start icon in the panel disappeared. I tried it again because I was connected to the internet the first time and I thought that might have had something to do with it but it did the same again (although I didn't have the redhat icon back for it to remove).

The stuff that's missing was set up by RedHat during installation, it's the virtual folders that come up from the 'start here' icon. I wondered if there was a way to reinstall a certain package from the install CD's to fix/check it.

I guess the fact that the computer working alright is a good enough health check. Thanks again

[Calum]

try right clicking on your "start button", and see if you get the option "menu editor", if so, i know that in mandrake, there are a number of checkbox options in there that will make more and/or less folders appear in different configurations in the 'start menu' - now i have not got a clue if this will all be the same in red hat since red hat tend to mess around with kde before they release their version of it, so if this works then great, if not, it's back to the old drawing board i'm afraid!

[Void Main]

It sounds more like parts/all of the "redhat-artwork" or "redhat-logos" packages was removed. He could do a "rpm -V redhat-artwork" and "rpm -V redhat-logos" to verify everything is where it should be.

I no longer have a "Start Here" ICON on my desktop. I don't remember if I removed it or if it was removed automatically, or if it was removed when I upgraded to RH9. I suspect the latter.

[sh00der]

Thinking about it, I guess it's not really important to sort this out but out of interest ... I don't get anything from checking the logos package but rpm -V redhat-artwork gives

missing c /root/.gtkrc

Then I thought I would do rpm -Va, here's a sample of what I got,

missing c /root/.Xresources
missing c /root/.bash_logout
missing c /root/.bash_profile
missing c /root/.bashrc
missing c /root/.cshrc
missing c /root/.tcshrc
..?..... c /etc/sudoers
..?..... /usr/bin/sudo
S.5....T c /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia
.M?...G. c /etc/ppp/peers/wvdial
......G. /usr/bin/wvdial
.......T c /etc/yp.conf
SM?....T c /etc/alchemist/namespace/printconf/local.adl
SM5....T /usr/share/rhn/up2date_client/checklist.pyc
..5....T /usr/src/linux-2.4.18-14/net/llc/.depend
.......T /usr/src/linux-2.4.18-14/net/netlink/.depend
.......T /usr/src/linux-2.4.18-14/net/netrom/.depend
.......T /usr/src/linux-2.4.18-14/net/packet/.depend
.......T /usr/src/linux-2.4.18-14/net/rose/.depend

Is it only the missing ones that I need to fix? How do I fix them? If the others have problems as well it's time for a reformat because I got pages of them

[sh00der]

I just noticed, I upgraded to 2.4.20 so why is the 2.4.18 stuff listed there?

[Void Main]

There is nothing in your clip of output from an rpm -Va that would concern me. It is strange that the "/root/.bashrc" files are missing though. Those files are part of the "rootfiles" package. You can see what is supposed to be in that package by typing "rpm -qil rootfiles". You can reinstall it by finding it on your installation CDs and do a "rpm -Fvh rootfiles*" in the directory that contains the RPM possibly with a "--force" option but it shouldn't be needed.

As far as your kernel version, when you upgrade kernels it should do an "rpm -ivh newkernel*" and not a "rpm -Uvh newkernel*" when it is upgraded. The reason for this is so it doesn't wipe out your old kernel. That way if there is a problem with the new kernel you are not left with an unbootable system. You can do an "rpm -qa | grep kernel" to see which one(s) you have installed.