Cannot enable ethernet (eth0) on Pine64

[antispoof]

I was hoping for some pointers on this issue I am having while trying to enable eth0 interface on my Pine64 SBC.

 

I am running the following Armbian version:
 

Title: Armbian 5.38.180128 Pine64 Debian stretch next

Kernel: Linux 4.14.15

Build date: 28.01.2018

I am able to connect a USB 2.0 to Ethernet adapter without any issues. The problem arises when I try to enable eth0 which is the Native Ethernet port.
 

pine64:/# ifconfig eth0 up

SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such device

dmesg | grep eth0 gives me the following:

xxxxxx.ethernet eth0: Could not attach to PHY

var/log/messages shows the following:
 

device (eth0): driver '(null)' does not support carrier detection

device (eth0): driver 'unknown' does not support carrier detection

It definitely looks like a driver issue but reinstalling the following did not help:

firmware-linux-nonfree

firmware-linux

Setting network manager to ignore the carrier and restarting network services yielded no results:
 

$ cat /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

[main]

plugins=ifupdown,keyfile

ignore_carrier=eth0

 

thoughts?

thanks!

[Igor]

Ethernet is currently broken on (some) A64 boards with mainline kernel due to recent changes in the driver. Banana M64, which is a similar design, was happy with such patch https://github.com/armbian/build/commit/6ab13a0122ee80c0ffbd57c0a42a969935787117 while I actually don't have Pine64 (ordered) to check if the same trick works.

[findix]

Hi @Igor
I was wondering if you were able to figure out Pine64 GMAC issue with 4.14. 

thanks!

[Igor]

Nope, AFAIK it works (don't have any Pine64 except Pinebook) on 100Mbit only like with Orangepi Win, Lime A64, ...