I am new to Linux and have Red Hat 8.0 (2.4.18-14). I have a 3ComSOHO10/100 NIC and cannot get the thing to activate and I'm reaching the end of my tether.

Can ANYBODY please tell me how to get the card activated before I go stark raving mad!

More info, please.

Did Linux identify the card or ignore it?

What research have you done? Google? Red Hat? This forum? Each one has a search capability that you should type your NIC card into.

Basically, what have you done?

Hmmmmm well, quite a bit actually.

I have an Asus P4S8X m/b so I also have SiS900 onboard LAN which I have also tried, but that doesn't work either. I have tried both cards with the same results, each card is recognised and appears in the network setup control, but won't activate. Both work fine with XP Pro.

I've looked on RedHat (not much use so far), Google (which seems to have identified that the 3Com card may only be supported by Windows), and this forum (which has been most helpful) but I still don't have a solution.

I noticed that someone else has posted a solution to get a SiS900 to work with RH8.0 but when I tried it, it didn't work.

Like I said, I'm new to Linux and so I'm looking for a simple solution if poss so I can get on with playing with the OS and learning some more!

Well, according to this, your motherboard is good:

http://www.linuxtested.com/results/asus_p4s8x.html

This article brings up some interesting questions:

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/linux/linu...3-03/0283.html

On to my questions! First do you have an onboard Firewire port on your motherboard? There are a number of threads where this has caused Red Hat to lock up when it is trying to install.

The other question is a little wierd: Are you getting an error message saying "Spurious 8259A Interrupt: IRQ7?"

No I don't have an onboard Firewire port, and the install went fine anyway - I didn't experience any locking up at install.

Haven't seen the error message you mentioned.

I never could get that 3COM card to work right under Linux. Maybe try a different card.

Yea the 3Com card may not work in linux, that model is sort of the winmodem of network cards and although it's similar to a 3c905 it probably won't work even if it does load using the linux driver. It's possible that 3Com would have a driver on their site that works but I doubt they do.

With the onboard sis chip have you tried to look at asus' site for info on getting that board to work in linux? Even if they don't provide a driver or official support a lot of companies throw up a simple document that at least tells you what linux driver to use.

google advanced for
SiS900 linux
includes
http://www.network-drivers.com/drivers/7/7260.htm
linux 3Com SOHO driver
includes
http://www.tux.org/hypermail/linux-v...-Dec/0054.html

I have been trying to sort this out ever since my first post with absolutely no success. I've learnt a fair about Linux though and I have to say the effort has been enjoyable - I just wish there was a light at the end of the tunnel to make it worthwhile.

Here's what I've tried:

1. Ditched the 3Com card as there's less evidence of anyone getting it to work with RedHat 8.0 (2.4.18-14).
2. Tried searching on Google for SiS900 and RedHat and found numerous sites offering drivers and numerous posts from people claiming that they've got the SiS to work. I couldn't get any of them to work which leads me to believe I'm installing them wrong.
3. Taught myself how to compile the kernel, with mixed results. I think I might need to compile a 2.4.20 kernel to get the SiS to work but I can't do that as I only have 2.4.18 rpms and RH don't have 2.4.20 RPMs on their site.
4. Noticed I can't even detect an Intel 536EP modem with RedHat. Is it likely something is wrong with the PCI setup on my machine which is the real reason my NIC won't work? The NIC is detected though - I just can't initialise it.

Can anyone please help me out? I'd particularly like to hear from anyone who has a SiS648 chipset with an onboard SiS900 NIC running RH8.0 who has got it all to work together - how did you do it?!

I've found I rather like Linux and desperately want to get it to work.