Connecting Sony Vaio to the Internet
 

An old Sony Vaio hasn't been used in years; it used to run on Windows 98 until the OS was corrupted, and couldn't find the disks. Now it is a Linux learning platform. Slackware 10.2 has been loaded, mostly successfully, as best a novice can determine. The kernel is 2.4.31.

When this was an office machine it was on a LAN, so it has an ethernet card. But I'm not sure if this has been detected. LSPCI lists the following:

PCI Bridge: Intel 440 BX/ZX/DX 82443BX/ZX/DX
Firewire: Sony CXD3222 i.Link Controller
Multimedia Audio: Yamaha YMF-744B
Conexant HSF 56k Data/Fax Modem
VGA Controller: Neomagic NM2380 MagicMedia 256XL
Various things (USB, IDE, etc.): Intel 82371AB

Are any of the above the ethernet card? I don't think so, but nor do I know how to identify the ethernet card.

In any event, the machine doesn't connect to the Internet using LAN. I think it needs to recognize the ethernet card, and I also think it needs a driver. Maybe that is all one step.

Nor does it connect to the Internet with the dial-up modem. "Modem is busy" is the error message.

Thank you for any help you may offer.

Is dmseg helpful, if any?

I guess not everything is working. Dmseg returns "command not found".

On the other hand I discovered an easy way to identify the network adapter card. It just pops out by pressing a lever. It is a 3COM 3CXFE574BT.

PCMCIA is turned on, but the card is not found. I have downloaded pcmcia-cs-3.2.8.tar.gz which may or may not be useful. I have downloaded e100-3.4.14a-1.src.rpm which may or may not be the driver for the network card.

If I can figure out how to mount a floppy or a cdrom and load these files, maybe I will learn if they are useful or not.

Try:

dmesg

(reverse the "e" and the "s").

Also, what is the output of:

/sbin/ifconfig -a

Does this show any information for eth0 or eth1, or just lo?

I did a re-install and noticed a couple of steps which I think had been neglected the first time around, pertaining to pcmcia and network. Still they didn't seem to see a 3CXFE574BT. However, now /sbin/ifconfig -a is picking up something for eth0, whereas it didn't before. (I haven't yet had time to test the connection, though).

Here is the result:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:86:57:A4:E3
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 ovverruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 ovverruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:3 base address 0x300

LO Link encap:Local Loopback
Inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 ovverruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 ovverruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:448 (48.0 b) TX bytes:448 (448.0 b)

I take all that to be good, but I'm only guessing and I will see what happens when I test the connection.

dmesg scrolls the screen for awhile, and when it stops, it appears that this is the output:

hdc : packet command error:status=0x51 {DriveReady SeekComplete Error}
hdc : packet command error:error=0x30
ATAPI device hdc
Error:Medium error -- (sense key=0x03)
(reserved error code) -- (asc=0x57, ascq=0x00)
The failed "Test Unit Ready" packet command was:
"00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 "

Thanks for looking at this. I will report back after I can test the connection.

#1. apology for my typo. try "dmesg | less" for useful info.

#2. 3CXFE.... is supported by pcmcia-cs. http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/SUPPORTED.CARDS So, you are in right track. Most likely, you only have to either start dhcp or assign static IP.

Yep, your card was detected, it just doesn't have an IP address yet. Do you have a DHCP server, or will you need to specify a static IP address? There are a couple of different ways to configure either.

Okay, I'm in, or on, as the case may be. I am posting this from the laptop, connecting through a (DSL) DHCP server. In netconfig I had to change the setting to DHCP = on. The setup instructions suggested using the loopback setting for laptops, but it my case, with the 3COM card, this wasn't appropriate.

I had to configure the LISa daemon, and I also had to get SAMBA started. Actually I don't know if either of these actions were strictly necessary to resolve my problem. I think the LISa daemon is primarily for the beneift of the browser (Konqueror). And SAMBA, if I understand correctly is for file sharing with other computers on the network (of which there are none). But neither were working off the bat. To get SAMBA started, oddly, I renamed a file from smb.conf-sample to smb.conf

Thank you for your help. Now, on to the bigger project of getting a handle on Linux.