I have an old Toshiba laptop which happens to not have a CDROM drive. I managed to install Debian Etch via boot floppies and over the network. I used the floppy images here:

http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dist...images/floppy/

Odd thing is that after the install, there are no network devices other than the loopback interface! The laptop has a 3COM 10/100 PCMCIA card (model 3CCFE574BT) which I know works since it was used for the network install.

Any suggestions on how to get this networking card enabled?

(I apologize if this isn't the right forum for this question; there seems to be more than one forum where this post could be appropriate.)

Try plugging the device in, and then look at your system log (/var/log/ directory).

Also, once you plug it in, try /sbin/lspci to see if it is recognized. You might just need to bring the interface up (as root, type ifup eth0).

A "grep -i eth *" in that directory showed up with nothing. In /var/log/installers/ however (which I presume are the various logs during the installation process), my ethernet device was found as eth0.

My system doesn't appear to have /sbin/lspci installed. Running "ifup eth0" returns an error that says "No such device"

sorry, try just lspci |grep ethernet. And try cat /var/log/syslog |grep eth0.

Looks like it works, according to the HCL. You can try lsmod and see if you see a module like 3c574_cs.

Or just try adding the module. As root, do a modprobe 3c574_cs and then lsmod to see if it loaded. Then you can try restarting the network.

Both commands returned nothing.

Sorry, I edited the post above. Try modprobe 3c574_cs and see if it loads the module with lsmod.

You can also try adding to /etc/network/interfaces. Then restart the network with /etc/init.d/networking restart.

You also might need to install the pcmciautils package if you didn't do it while you were connected.

I've no doubt this is supported, as I successfully performed a network install to begin with.

I ran modprobe followed by lsmod, and it loaded it. I then added 3c574_cs to /etc/modules, rebooted, and still no-go. My /etc/network/interfaces file already has those two lines for eth0.

After rebooting, was the module loaded? Did lspci return your card? How are you testing connectivity?

Edit: also did you have the pcmciautils package installed? dpkg --get-selections |grep pcmcia

After rebooting, I can see (via lsmod) that the 3c574_cs module was loaded. I did not see the networking card with lspci (it shows a bridge, video controller, ide interface, usb controller, another bridge, and a "Communication controller".

I have both the pcmcia-cs and pcmciautils packages installed, according to the dpkg command you suggested.

I've tested connectivity by simply issuing /sbin/ifconfig -a, which only sees the loopback interface and the infrared port; there's no eth0. If I try ifconfig eth0, it says "Device not found". My link light on the network dongle remains off.

This continues to be quite puzzling!

Hmmm. I'm no expert at pcmcia problems. But the pcmciautils package should have some tools to help you find out what's going on. Try reading man pages on any "pcmcia" type packages in the /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, or /usr/sbin directories.

I'll see what I can find in the way of documentation on google. Puzzling indeed...

Here's the debian reference manual section on pcmcia and hotplug. I haven't read through it, but maybe something will help there.

After reading through that documentation, I poked around a bit and discovered that the hotplug package was not installed for some reason. It's looks likely that I need this package. I'll have to download the package (and any of its dependencies) and sneaker net them using a usb flash drive or something. However, where do I find the actual packages? I tried looking at http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dist...n/binary-i386/, but there were no packages at all.

Edit: I spoke too soon. I found http://packages.debian.org/ ... will download from here and give it a shot.

I think Etch uses udev instead. But it should have the same functionality, I would think.

I googled around a bit. Seems that maybe you could use the pccardctl command (read the man page) to get some more information and see if the card is even recognized as inserted.