PCI ethernet card
 

Does anyone know if the Siemens Speedstream 1020 PCI 10/100 ethernet card is Linux compatible? The label on the box claims that it is compatible with Linux, *nix, and BSD, but the company provides no support. My card is not recognized even after recompiling the kernel. (I did not see this specific card listed during make config ) Is there a generic driver which might work with this card. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.:confused:

Re: PCI ethernet card
 

If you find out what chipset the card uses, it might help us determine what module is used to support your NIC.

Is it installed? If so, look for it in what you get when you command:

cat /proc/pci

and do a google/post again if you can't figure it out.

Thanks for the suggestions. I am away from that machine at the moment, but I will see if I can find chipset specs tonight. As to "is it installed?" , the card is not recognized during installation of the OS, (I am dual booting a M$ product as well, and it is recognized there - but I am trying to migrate completed away from Redmond software) nor is it recognized during the network setup portion of the install. As I stated originally, I found no Siemens PCI ethernet card option when I recompiled my kernel.

I meant was "is it plugged into the pci slot in the computer". :eek:

I call the rest of the stuff "configuring".

Hey fancypiper,
I didn't mean to sound beligerent. When I saw your last reply, I had to laugh. Yes, as a matter of fact, the card is indeed fully inserted into what was previously a vacant PCI slot. However, I am still away from that machine. My job requires that I travel, and in many locations my ISP does not provide local access numbers for dialup with my laptop. Hopefully, I will be able to address this network card issue when I am safely back at my domicile on Friday afternoon. Thanks for not taking offense at my "As I stated..." comment. I know that from time to time there are those users on some forums who don't know how to install parts. Rest assured I am not one of them. I do have formal training as an electronics technician. Computers are a hobby for me, and Linux is an addiction. I have dabbled with several Mandrake releases and one Red Hat release. But I really wanted to learn Linux, so I installed Slackware. I have a Gentoo release, but I haven't been so bold as to attempt it yet. I also have FreeBSD 4.6, but I can't seem to get Xwindows to run on it...Alas, that is a different forum entirely. Thanks to everyone for their patience and politeness. There are some truly outstanding people on this board.

:D You never know what/who you are dealing with here if you have been following some of the threads here.

You should find the info you need to finish configuring your kernel with the info from

cat /proc/pci

A handy CD to have laying around to see what modules/configs etc. work is the KNOPPIX Linux Live CD. Stick it in and switch to a virtual terminal (control-alt-F2) and command:

lsmod

That will return a list of modules that their hardware probe found and configured. Then you can look at the ones offered in the kernel that uses that module.

HTH

Fancy - not able to pull a match with your KNOPPIX Linux Live CD link.
Andrew

:eek: I fixed it (I think) :rolleyes:

KNOPPIX Linux Live CD

# Cheap CDs
Discount Linux CDs
Linux Central
Cheapbytes
TuxCDs
ComputerHelperGuy

O.K.
cat /proc/pci returned this:

Bus 0, device 7, function 0:
Ethernet controller: PCI device 1432:9130 (Edimax Computer Co.) (rev 16).
IRQ 11.
Master Capable. Latency=32. Min Gnt=32.Max Lat=64.
I/O at 0xc800 [0xc8ff].
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xdf000000 [0xdf0000ff].

Where do I go from here? :scratch:

(I am downloading KNOPPIX as we speak. FYI - Chris Perillo from TechTV mentions KNOPPIX in a recent article in CPU magazine.)

We now know that the IRQ is 11 and the port is 0xc800, at least.

I would first check the Ethernet HOWTO to see what I might do with that information.

The good old Linux Google search hits may be of help as well.

I finally unplugged the card in an effort to find the chipset info.

As it turns out, the chipset is an RMC(Realtek ?) RTL8139C

With this information in hand, I went to the Ethernet HOWTO and found this:

4.31.5. RealTek 8129/8139

Status: Semi-Supported, Driver Name: rtl8139, 8139too

Another PCI single chip ethernet solution from RealTek. A driver for cards based upon this chip was included in the v2.0.34 release of linux. You currently have to answer `Y' when asked if you want experimental drivers for v2.2 kernels to get access to this driver.

Donald says that cards based on this chip are around the same price (or even cheaper in places - 13 bucks!) as a PCI NE2000 clone card, and while the 8139 design is not the best 10/100 board, it is better than a PCI NE2000 clone card.

The 2.4.x kernels have another driver called 8139too which was based on rtl8139 but tries to adress some of the more common problems people were reporting, so you may wish to try that if using a 2.4 kernel.


(I posted this info from the How-to in effort to help those with similar problems who may be viewing this thread)

Should I run make config again to try to find this chipset driver in the kernel configuration? (I have the 2.4.20 kernel)

Yes. If you had rather have a module, change the <*> to <m> and load the module on boot.

# Find running kernel version
uname -r

Here is where it is in make menuconfig:
Network device support --->
Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit) --->[*] EISA, VLB, PCI and on board controllerss[*] Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit)
<*> RealTek RTL-8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter support[*] Support for uncommon RTL-8139 rev. K (automatic channel equalization)[*] Support for older RTL-8129/8130 boards

Thanks so much for your assistance! I hope these will be the last questions I have in this thread. What would be the advantage or disadvantage of compiliing this driver as a loadable module? If it is a module, wouldn't I have to manually load it when I want to access my LAN? Would it be more efficient to have it loaded during boot, so that network access is ready at logon?

I compile it into the kernel, myself so that it is there. I don't worry about the kernel size since I don't use a boot floppy.

You can always add it to /etc/modules.conf or modprobe it by putting it in /etc/rc.d/rc.local, the last script run on boot up.

Where to put 'insmod' and 'modprobe' Commands for Start-up