RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)

Thanasis
2012-09-20T17:36:30Z

I have an Acer Aspire One notebook, and it has a NIC as shown below:

# lspci |grep -i Realtek
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)

The driver module that I use is r8169. It works with 2.6 series of
kernels, but it does *not* with the recent 3.x of kernels.

Here is the output of ethtool with the 2.6.38 kernel:

# ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Supported pause frame use: No
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Advertised pause frame use: No
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Link partner advertised pause frame use: No
Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 100Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 0
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: pumbg
Wake-on: g
Current message level: 0x00000033 (51)
drv probe ifdown ifup
Link detected: yes

Question: Should I stick with 2.6 kernels, or are there any directions
on how to make the NIC work with recent 3.x kernels?