PCMCIA - 'unknown interface'
 

I'm trying to get DSL on a Dell Latitude XPi (133Mhz). Acutally I have DSL loaded but I'm having problems getting a network connection. I loaded DSL by taking out the laptop HD and plugging it into a desktop with the DSL CD. After it was loaded I put it back in the laptop and rebooted. Besides not getting an IP address, FLUXBOX is hideously unusable.

Taking what I've leared sofar, and my basic knowledge of computers, I've determeined that PCMCIA is loading before DHCP (Which is good) but during the cardmanager startup it throws an error when it tries to run the ifup eth0 command. The thrown error is: ifup: Ignoring unknown interface eth0. When it finishes booting I'll type ifconfig and it only reports the loopback interface. If I type ifconfig -a it then shows eth0 and lo but the eth0 interface has no IP address.

I don't understand if ifconfig knows about the eth0 device, and the PCMCIA modules are loaded correctly (as near as I can figure) why does ifup say there is an unknown interface? Am I reading too much into this? Does anyone have an idea as to which way I should move?

Sorry...
 

I didn't dig deep enough, but you'll be happy to hear I figured it out on my own, with a littl help from this post

I needed the part about adding eth0 to /etc/network/interfaced and it worked like a charm. Thaks to all the posters....

Other issues...
 

Even though I fixed my eth0 problem, I still have to resolve my icky X display in FLUXBOX. Of the posts that I have read, they recommend intsalling Xfree86 to better handle the NEOMagic chipset that this a computer has. I'd love to do so, but what is the best way? I want to be able to use the dselect utility, but I only know how to enable it using X (which is not viewable). If you've bothered to read the other posts, this is DSL 0.7.3. Does anyone know off the top of their heads how to enable apt with the command line?

Thanks again...

Well it seem I just keep answering my own questions... Actuall the guys at the DSL forum were able to help... I'm posting here for posterity, and in case it can help anyone else.

To enable apt from the command line enter now wasn't that simple? Yeah I thought so too. I can now try to get the icky X fixed. I'll keep posting my progress if I think it might be helpful to someone.