All,

Ok, blathered on a bit about my mouse troubles in my other mouse thread, and the only exception I should note is that the mouse was dead at the console and in X-windows, not just in X-windows alone.

Well, several reinstalls and experiments later, I think I found what seems to trigger the mouse problems.

Recap: FIC PA-2013 motherboard with K6-III processor (MVP3 board chipset), PS/2 Microsoft 2-button ergo-mouse (no wheel, about 7 years old)

Also, 2 ethernet cards. An SMC EtherEZ ISA PnP (smc-ultra driver), and a RealTek RTL8019 ISA PnP (ne1000/2000 driver).

Oddly, I couldn't set either of these up using Autoprobe during installation. But using drakconf I could do so once the OS was installed.

Now, everything's currently fine, but it turns out that if I use drakconf and set up that RealTek card (the SMC goes to my cablemodem and uses DHCP to get an address), the RealTek is for the LAN, which isn't currently connected), and set up the RealTek with the IP of 192.168.0.1, give the box a hostname, etc., everything will be fine at first.

However, when I shut down, the next time I boot up, while bootup says there's no problem starting console mouse services, the mouse is effectively dead (both console and X-windows), and shutting down the system notes FAILED for Shutting down console mouse services.

Right now I've got everything working fine by reinstalling, and then setting up everything (including the SMC ethernet card as eth0) but NOT setting up that RealTek card (as eth1).

Note that this is a dual boot machine, and both cards and all the hardware seems to work fine together in Win98, and has done so for better than 2 years.

So, is this a problem specifically caused by:[list=a][*]The way drakconf sets things up?[*]A problem with the ne1000/2000 ISA NIC driver?[*]The drivers in Linux for the RealTek and the SMC don't play nicely together with the PS/2 mouse?[*]The motherboard I have, combined with the mouse and those two NICs somehow don't play nice together in Linux?[*]Some other reason I can't figure out?[/list=a]

Thoughts or suggestions? I'd like to get that 2nd ethernet card set up, and will do it manually if it's specifically a drakconf problem that's throwing off the mouse. But I don't really know where to start, and would rather avoid changing for a different ethernet card.

I doubt anyone's run into this particular problem, but suggestions are GREATLY appreciated.

I guess it's drakconf. Try it manually (not sure the driver name, I guess it's ne):
modprobe ne
ifconfig eth1 anyiphere
And it's done. Look if your mouse works now.

I'll give that a try.

However, just in case that also causes trouble, which files are changed by doing those two commands? I'd like to back them up and restore them if this somehow kills the mouse as well.

Thanks!

EDIT: What I should say I really want is, to be able to set that ethernet card to the fixed IP (in this case 192.168.0.1), and have it come up automatically every time the system is booted up. The intent is that other computers will be hooked up to this machine with the 2 cards via LAN, and this computer should perform NAT on traffic coming through to allow the other computers to use the internet.

You can always add the commands to /etc/rc.d/rc.local. Not an elegant solution, but works.

I found some good information at on NE2000/NE1000 and RealTek RTL8019 ISA PnP cards at The Linux Documentation Project. Also, make sure that you have Plug and Pray disabled in your BIOS or you could get into trouble with the RealTek 8109 card according to TLDP. Scroll down to the 8109 section.

You should also add the following to your /etc/modules.conf file if you haven't already:

alias eth0 smc-ultra
alias eth1 ne

Hope this helps.

Wow, thanks for the info Texicle!

That's a lot of stuff.... it looks like the RealTek card is particularly troublesome for Linux then, or at least the ne based cards are.

Maybe I'll just switch to a 3Com 905-based PCI 10/100 instead.

Anyway, thank you very much for that particular bit of research and info!

I'll figure out what exactly to do once I get moved to my house and have my LAN set up again.

No problem. I think you could use your RealTek card okay as long as you read all the documention in those links and add your aliases. Good luck!

Texicle,

Well, tried that. First I booted up, and the RealTek card isn't configured.

Then I did:
modprobe ne
ifconfig eth1 192.168.0.1

Then as you suggested, I added the line:
alias eth1 ne
to the end of my /etc/modules.conf file. The line
alias eth0 smc-ultra
was already there.

Rebooted. Oddly, I didn't see the Starting up eth1 interface, so I guess I have to change a file elsewhere to make sure it always gets the same IP or otherwise tell the system how to configure the NIC address.

Get to the console, log in, and lo and behold, dead mouse! So I deleted that line from /etc/modules.conf and rebooted.

Noted as the sysetm was shutting down that Shutting down console mouse services failed!

Boot up, no problems. Of course the RealTek card isn't configured or set up to be used, but at least I now know it's not specifically a drakconf problem, just a problem with the card/driver.

Bummer. Odd though that the mouse works if I set the card up manually after the system has completed booting. I guess I either have to use mara's suggestion, or simply swap out cards.

I'll probably just put in the 10/100 once I get my LAN set up, and ultimately get a 10/100 capable hub.

I've had trouble getting ISA cards to work in my old FIC boards, namely, the VA503+ and VA503A. When I went to a pci card, the problem was gone. Also, I had more problems with using an ATX power supply than with the old AT PS. Go figure.

Hmm . . and the PA-2013 is more or less a full-ATX version of the VA-503+

Might explain quite a bit.

Looking more and more like the PCI 10/100 card is the way to go.