Hi, im an experienced user, but complety new to linux so please forgive me, if this error is a bummer.

I took my old Acer Travelmate 512 and put Redhat 9.0 Linux on it, to play around and have some Python programs running.

Thats the plan.

The problem:
Redhat Linux 9.0
AcerTravelmate 512T
Surecom EP 428x/Realtek PCMCIA Network-Card

On Startup of Linux, the systems reports the Networkcard missing

8139too-> device seems to be missing, initializing delayed

(thats translated from the german error message)

Now the strange thing: the networkcard shows in the GNOME Network-Menu, as deactivated. When i activate it, it works! Now as i activated it, it already starts, when i call the network-menu, which seems to init the card.

But i dont want to call the network-menu every time i start my linux, so how do i get it to work on startup?

And: I dont want to use GNOME on the long term either, because its even slower than MS Windows on that old fellow, so how do i get it to work in command-line modus?

My first guess would be to check that PCMCIA is started BEFORE network.

(I have that problem in Mandrake...had to fix it manually).

Check in the /etc/rc.d directories for whatever runlevel you use.

To all experts and to tcaptain:

Thanx! It worked! Spect!

To all newbies like me:

Linux seems to have a Runlevel, like the gears in a car. To find out which files you need to change, you first have to find out your runlevel. I tried the Terminal, and typed "runlevel" and it worked, at least i got "R 5" or something, i guessed that means my Redhat is running on Level 5. (This depends on Linux Distribution)

Knowing my runlevel, going to the " /etc/rc.d" directory meant for me to go to "/etc/rc5.d". There are a lot of files, some start with S01 some with K01.

To know what to do, i restarted my linux, on booting i pressed "I" which forced Red Hat to start in interactive mode, telling me all the files it boots. I wrote them down.

Later it showed that the files with S-Numbers seems to be some system stuff, an my filelist was represented by the K-Files. My network was File K08network and PCMCIA K24pcmcia. So i renamed K07iptables to K06iptables to have some room(which only worked in GNOME; i tried to rename it in the terminal and nothing happened). Then i renamed K24pcmcia -> K07pcmcia. Now pcmcia is loaded before the network.

Reboot -> Done! It Worked, Yippiee!

PS: ok, im approaching Linux like its an alien artefact, but i like it

just a note:

The K* links are links to KILL a certain process (ie: K08network is Kill network, but its the 8th service to be killed when the signal goes) and the S* are links to start the process.

So if you rename your S* links like you did your K* links, you won't have to use Interactive mode to boot.

Hmmm,

but i actually just changed the K* order in Runlevel 5 and it worked?

This doesnt make sense then, if its just for Killing Processes, if it dont get it wrong...

ok maybe i just have forgotten it, and actually changed the S* numbers... but good to know

does the Kill-Sequence make any difference?

The kill sequence MIGHT make a difference in certain things, but I've never changed it personally and never run into it...so I couldn't tell you any specifics. I only say it might because logically, if one service depends on another that gets killed first then errors might crop up in theory if you think about it that way