Hi,

Well, the subject line pretty much says it all. My mobo is an ASUS P4C800, and I can supply additional hardware details if anyone asks me to. The steps I've run to this point are from the readme file that came with the driver downloaded from the asus website:

"
1) Make sure that the kernel source is installed in /usr/src/linux
or /usr/src/linux-2.4.**
2) Copy the file /Linux/3c2000.tar.gz from the 3Com driver CD to
your hard drive.
3) Change to the directory containing 3c2000.tar.gz
4) Type 'tar zxvf 3c2000.tar.gz'
5) Type 'cd 3c2000'
Note: on SuSE systems since 7.1, you will have to execute the
following commands before running make:
cp /boot/vmlinuz.version.h /usr/src/linux/include/linux/version.h
cp /boot/vmlinuz.autoconf.h /usr/src/linux/include/linux/autoconf.h
6) Type 'make load' to load the driver.
"

**I didn't do step one because I don't understand it, but when I go to /usr/src as root, using "ls" turns up nothing. Could that be bad?

Anyway, everything goes fine until I say to "make load"... all I get is "-bash: make: command not found". I've tried capitalizing it ("Make") to no avail... is that a command for a specific version of linux, not debian etch like I've installed? This is my first-ever driver install w/linux, and I'm totally lost. Thanks for any advice!

aptitude install build-essential as root will get you the compiler and stuff.

Using Etch, I'm not sure that driver will compile at all. That source seems to be for a 2.4 kernel. Etch has 2.6.18.

What is the NIC? (Use lspci to find the line about "ethernet controller").

from lspci...

"02:05.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c940 10/100/1000Base-T [Marvell] (rev 12)"

This was the latest update on the asus website... is this going to mean that I need to buy a new NIC?

Thanks for the help!!

What is the output of lsmod (you might have to run it as root)?

It's about three pages long... I'll type out the modules listed, and then you can tell me if you want more information about any of them ("size", "Used by"):

udf, nls_iso8859_1, isofs, button, ac, battery, dm_snapshot, dm_mirror, dm_mod, sbp2, loop, i810_audio, ac97_codec, rtc, snd_intel8x0, snd_ac97_codec, snd_ac97_bus, i2c_i801, i2c_core, psmouse, i82875p_edac, edac_mc, snd_pcm, snd_timer, snd, soundcore, snd_page_alloc, serio_raw, pcspkr, shpchp, pci_hotplug, intel_agp, agpgart, sg, sr_mod, cdrom, tsdev, evdec, eth1394, ext3, jbd, mbcache, sd_mod, usbhid, ehci_hcd, skge, ata_piix, piix, sata_promise, ohci1394, ieee1394, libata, scsi_mod, uhci_mod, generic, ide_core, usbcore, thermal, processor, fan.

hope that helps!

Well, the module looks loaded. Your NIC uses the skge module according to google, so you shouldn't need to compile it special.

What kind of network problems are you having that you thought you needed to compile the driver?

Well, I can't ping anything but 127.0.0.1 successfully, and when I try to run DHCP, it times out. Also, I can't run the apt-get utility. Never could, apparently... when I look at /ect/apt/sources.list, I have one apt-cdrom entry for the Debian CD-ROM #1, then

#Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:
#deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib
#Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:
#deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib

and that's it.

what is the output of cat /etc/network/interfaces?

"...
#The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.104
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255
gateway 192.168.1.1
# dns-* options are implemented by the resolvconf package, if installed
dns-nameservers 66.75.164.90 66.75.164.89
dns-search rowland.org
"

I initially tried to setup the network with a static IP, but now I think that was a bad idea because our router is DHCP. Should I try to tell the computer to wait for a dynamically-given address? How? Also, those dns-nameservers are wrong, I think... how do I find out the correct ones?

ps - what is the cat command? Where can I find a good book or list of what all these helpful commands in linux are?

I would save that file as interfaces.old and then replace it withYou'll want to put your nameservers in /etc/resolv.confOf course, change the x's to the IP address. Usually just your router IP address is enough. Or contact your ISP and they can give you some IP addresses for their nameservers.

As for good sites for learning newbie stuff. I personally like the these Debian sites:
http://aboutdebian.com/
http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/index.php

For more generic stuff, you can google "linux newbie" and you'll get a whole bunch. I like the RUTE tutorial. And you can check out the linux documentation project. There's a couple of good tutorials there under the Guide section.

As for commands, you can basically type man commandname to read the manpage of any command listed in the /bin, /usr/bin, /sbin, or /usr/sbin directory.

Oh yeah, forgot to tell you that you need to restart networking services after making those changes. As root, do /etc/init.d/networking restart

sorry.... I did the changes you suggested, but now when I try to ping my router, I get "connect: Network is unreachable". I ran ifconfig and only got an entry for lo, so then I tried ifconfig eth0 up, but when I do that, it goes back to the old "destination host unreachable" phase that it was in initially. I really appreciate your help; do you have any more ideas? Also, I'm using a somewhat old and questionable cable... is this to the point where you think I should try replacing that before more software steps?

Replacing the cable is certainly an option. Just out of curiosity, what type of router do you have? Try dhclient eth0.

Found a Debian Quick Reference Card.

No DHCPOFFERS received, unfortunately. Two notes:

1) Now, ifconfig gives me an eth0 entry, but the "Link encap:UNSPEC" worries me.

2) Incidentally, the lines returned by dhclient were "DHCPDISCOVER on eth- to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval ??". Is that right? I would have guessed something more along the lines of my subnet mask 255.255.255.0, or even the router IP 192.168.1.1. Unless that's incorrect, I guess I'm off to Best Buy for a cable.

In other news, my router is a Linksys WRT54G:

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satel...=0034939789B01

Oh, and just to make sure... if I can connect to my router at a given address on this computer by just typing the IP into the address bar, that means that that is the correct IP address... right? Because I don't want a dumb problem like that to be what's messing me up.

I'll get back to you when I have my new, sweet cable. Again, thanks so much for your help!

Okay, maybe a bit more information. What's the output of dmesg | grep eth0 and cat /var/log/syslog | grep eth0?