Fedora Core 2
Fresh install 1/16
Dell Latitude CPi

Network Card: 3Com Megahertz 3CCFEM556 B

After fighting with RH9 trying to resolve dependency issues and other software problems, I made the jump to Fedora. I installed Core 2 because someone mentioned Core 3 has some problems.

Here's the problem:
When I start the system I get a Failure on eth0 trying to load the network device. The system detects the card as a 3c574_cs but says the device is not present.

I can remove the device in the Network Manager and then restart the system. When it re-detects the card it identifies it as a "3Com Megahertz 3CCFEM556B" in the Network Manager. I then have connectivity. However if I restart the system from that point, the card is then re-detected as a 3c574 as before and will not function.

I have searched the net for an updated Linux driver for this device and none appears to exist (besides the one included in my distro).

Is there any way to force the system to keep the "3Com Megahertz 3CCFEM556B" device which works?

The card does work fine in RH9.

I did find the LinuxQuestions thread linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?postid=248517
which begins to address this issue, however there is no resolution on this thread.

Any help is much appreciated.

You might try some manual editing. Check the config file, typically /etc/pcmcia/config (or config.opts), you should see a listing for your card similar to:
card "3Com 572/574 Fast Ethernet"
bind "3c574_cs"

The bind line is what tells pcmcia what module to use for a particular card.
You might then try the section for the 3CCFEM556B card and edit it to bind that module to it. It's cheating a bit, but it might work. You might also check out the pcmcia project pages and mailing list and see if there's more info. Perhaps submit a bug report as well, if it's not already a known issue.

Thank you for your quick reply rbochan.

That makes sense, and I was hoping for some direction for manual editing.

BTW, I did search through the pcmcia project and did not see anything there, probably because the 3CCFEM556B works well in several other RedHat versions prior to the Fedora releases.

I will not be able to try this until later today, but I will let you know how it goes.