help me install a PCMCIA NIC in Debian 3.0
 

Ok, fist off, I am very new, and have probably already done some very wrong things trying to get this to work. I'm sorry, please be patient with me ;)

I have a laptop that I have had Debian 3.0 on and, unfortunatly, I haven't done too much learning on it yet.

I was able to come across a wireless PCMCIA NIC (Linksys WPC11 ver. 3).
I checked, and there is a driver for this NIC in the orinoco_cs module that comes with Debian.

Debian is there, with PCMCIA working (at least it was a couple of months ago when I tested it with a wired NIC). Searching on the Net I found a couple of sites (Hardware HOWTO, ethernet HOWTO, etc.) that didn't specificaly cover what I was looking for, but I thought I could adapt the info fairly easily.

:::let me take this moment to explain that I don't know linux, and so when I say that I tried something, rest assured that I in fact do know what I was doing, I was just guessing for the most part and hoped some result would give me a hint. Oh, also this took place over an afternoon, so I don't remember all the logic I used to justify the steps I took...:::

This is all as root.

first I checked lsmod, and Orinoco_cs was not loaded. so I did "insmod orinoco_cs" It errored. Reading more of the website, I tried "modprobe orinoco_cs" no errors. lsmod shows it and it's dependencies loaded.

I added orinoco_cs to /etc/modules,
not knowing how to control VI, I really messed up /etc/network/interfaces
but I'm fairly sure that I got it back to default (if anyone wants to post what it should have by default, that would be nice).

I also added "alias eth0 orinoco_cs" to /etc/modules.conf despite the warnings at the beginning of the file. I tried for an hour to figure out how to work Debian's "update-modules" worked, and then gave up.

I don't know if this is important or not, but now at start up, the screen says the following:

loading modules: unix af_packet orinoco_cs Linux PCMCIA Car services 3.1.33
Kernal build: 2.2.20 #1 Sat April 20 11:45:28 Est 2002
options: [pci] pcardbus] [apm]
PCI routing table version 1.0 at 0xfdf80
00:00.0 -> irq 10
00:0a.0 -> irq 11
ds: no socket drivers loaded!
/lib/modules/2.2.20/pcmcia/ds.o: init_module: Device or resource busy
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.
/lib/modules/2.2.20/pcmcia/ds.o insmod /lib/modules/2.2.20/pcmcia/ds.o failed unloading PCMCIA CArd Services
/lib/modules/2.2.20/pcmcia/ds.o: insmod orinoco_cs failed

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am good with just steps, but if you want to give some insight as to what the steps do and why, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance, and more thanks for reading this far!

Slightly off topic
 

This doesn't answer your question, but I thought you might find it very helpfull.

As a new user, try using pcio or joe as a text editor. Pico is part of the pine email suite. Vi is great, and it is extremely powerfull, but can take a while to learn. There are a few good sites/documents on vi and ed commands.

Good luck!

Yeah, I would have used Pico, but it's not on this system... I figured out what I need to with VI...namely open a file, save a file, close, and close without saving.

you got kernel 2.2, you need 2.4.

ok, how can I get 2.4 without a network connection?

Burn it to a cd? Can I slipstream it into the vanilla iso I've downloaded?

Do I need to go to Sarge instead of Woody?

Try nano instead of vi. Also try Sarge instead of Woody. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

The Sarge Beta4 install properly starts PCMCIA, and asks which module should be loaded for the NIC, I hilight Orinoco_cs, hit enter, and the installer does nothing. I went ahead and tried to pick other modules, and it is the same thing. The only way past this screen is to select "None of the above" in which case a screen comes up that tells me the installation failed. I can continue the install, but when it is finished, Linux will not boot.

I'm going to put Woody back on.

The latest version of Debian installer is Sarge rc1 (first Release Candidate!). It doesn't matter if you don't get your nic detected during installation, you can configure network (and modprobe the correct module, if needed) afterwards. You need to install Grub to boot Debian.

Ok, so the more current install for Sarge completes.

The last step of the install says that it installs grub.

Anyway.. on boot, I choose 2.4.26 kernel, non recovery mode (although that doesn't matter), and here is what I get:

Booting 'Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.26-1-386'

root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.26-1-386 root=/dev/hda1 ro
[Linux-bzImage, setup=0x1400, size=0xc4d40]
initrd /boot/initrd.ing-2.4.26-1-368
[Linux-initrd @ 0x1c28000, 0x3b8000 bytes]
savedefault
boot


and then nothing...

That's unusual behaviour. Try to install Sarge with kernel 2.6.x to see if that helps. (At the very first screen of the installation CD, press F3 to see different boot options. "linux26" should install Debian with newer kernel.)

installing with the Linux26 parmeter doesn't get very far. This laptop only has 32 megs of ram (more has been ordered, but hasn't arrived), and when the install comes up it wasn't about entering low memory mode. I hit enter to continue, and the same message comes up, again and again.

I couldn't find Sarge rc1 per say, so I nabbed a recent daily build. Figuring it would be close. Could this be the trouble?

The latest Debian installer can be found from this webpage: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

The Sarge installation Manual http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/ says that 32 MB RAM is the minimal requirement for installing the base system http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/...6/ch02s05.html but more memory of course wouldn't hurt. It's quite possible that loading 2.6.x kernel eats more memory than loading 2.4.x kernel.

RC1 is better than beta4. Daily builds may or may not be OK -- these are development versions, a work in progress. RC1 would probably be the safest bet at the moment. Waiting till your ordered RAM arrives might solve some of your problems.

sarge RC1 install -- results the same.

I'm guessing it just wasn't meant to be.