Ethernet not available with debian/ubuntu 2014-02-16 but available with Angstrom

Hi all,

I have two BeagleBone boards. Both are Rev A6A.

I have been using the boards with an old Ubuntu image (sorry, can’t remember the version!!) till a few time ago; the Ethernet interface was working fine with Ubuntu at that time.

Then I have recently upgraded my SD card with “ubuntu-13.10-console-armhf-2014-02-16”, following the instructions at
http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu
the problem is that after the upgrade the Ethernet PHY is not detected anymore!
A not very clear message at boot, related to Ethernet, is:
libphy: PHY 4a101000.mdio:01 not found

Then, when I log in, using “ifconfig” I see no “eth0” device and the attempt to bring it up fails with something like “eth0 network interface not available”.

At first I thought it was an hardware problem, but both boards presented the same issue. Moreover, to try to “rollback” I’ve been flashing on the SD card several older versions of Ubuntu & Debian, without success. Finally, I tried “Angstrom-Cloud9-IDE-GNOME-eglibc-ipk-v2012.12-beaglebone-2013.06.20” and it works: eth0 is detected and working.

Do you have any hint to help me understand the problem? I would really like to use debian / ubuntu on my beaglebones but I cannot use ethernet so far…

Thank you very much for any help!