How Do I install a NIC in Slackware 12?
 

Hello - I just installed Slackware 12.0 and it went through the process with no errors.

Unfortunately none of the 4 NICs in this server were recognized. There is a PCI Intel Pro 2 port and 2 Broadcom 5721 chips on the motherboard.

I am not sure how to proceed - I checked the Broadcom web site for starters and found a Linux driver, but do not know how to install it.

Any feedback would be appreciated - thanks.

You have one post to LQ (Welcome!)

So I am assuming you are a "newbie". In which case slack may not be the best choice as, as I understand it (& I have never used it), everything needs to be compiled from source. This has benefits, but can be a PITA.

Maybe better to try one of the "it works out of the box (...mostly)" distros until you are familiar with using the terminal, compiling from source, dependencies, modules, kernel-source, boot options etc.

Look here: http://distrowatch.com/ for popular newbie-friendlier alternatives. [I maintain 6 PCs (family & friends) running Kubuntu 6.06LTS, and I never get calls for help because of a problem with the OS - it's always "user-problems" ;) ]

Otherwise some die-hard "slacker" will no doubt be along to help you (though this would be more likely if you had titled your post "How do I install NICs on Slackware 12.0" ;)

Have fun with linux !

How Do I Install a NIC?
 

Thanks for the response.

Hi,

Welcome to LQ & Slackware.

From the cli you can do a 'ifconfig -a' to show the recognized device(s).

If your device(s) show up then it is matter of running 'netconfig' as root or you can setup a static IP first, do as root from cli;

You should have your '/etc/resolv.conf' setup with your 'ISP DNS' nameservers.

'Linux Home Networking' is Linux Help for Professionals, Students and Hobbyists. You could also look at the 'Server' section of 'Slackware-Links' .

Thanks for the repsonse
 

Thanks for the repsonse - the problem is the NICs did not appear to be detected. I have a dual port PCI Intel Pro and 2 Broadcoms built onto the motherboard. The broadcom chips are labeled with 5721 and I think the tg3 module may be the needed one.

After I installed I issued ifconfig -a and all I received back was the loopback interface.

So the fun begins....

How do I get the OS to incorporate the NICs. I am reinstalling again to see if I missed anything the first time I ran setup. Just about done.

Any thoughts would be most appreciated - thanks - John

Whoo Hoo!
A Slackware user did come to his rescue :)
Over to you onebuck I'm getting out of here ;)

Hi,

Do a 'lspci -vv' as root to see the device(s). This should lead us to what modules you actually need.

Just reinstalled
 

I just reinstalled. Deleted the partitions and started from scratch. This time I used expert instead of full and went with defaults which looks like it installed everything.

from the expert install option in setup
uname -r yields 2.6.21.5-smp

previously from the full setup option
uname -r yielded 2.6.20-BT-PwnSauce-NOSMP

I did have a version of Backtrack on this machine yesterday, but the first thing I did today was delete the partitions with fdisk and start from scratch.


Issuing 'lspci -vv' list the 4 NICS as the last 4 devices. I configured an IP on one of them and am able to ping a host on the same subnet.

Is there something that expert mode would have done differently than full in the setup?

Thanks - John

Hi,

It looks like the previous install was from BackTrack not Slackware 12.0.

Your new install with a format of your partitions took care of the stale problems.

You should now be able to setup the NICs.

Welcome to LQ and Slackware!

In Slackware the file /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf contains the configuration settings
for network interfaces. The default file has 4 interface names. It is commented so
that you should understand how to use it. Don't forget to add your gateway, also.
For your LAN you'll find /etc/hosts especially useful.

You will also need to put your DNS nameservers in /etc/resolv.conf as onebuck stated.

After the two files are setup, as root issue "/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 restart" to restart
the service.

The Revised Slackware Book Project would be beneficial reading for you. Chapter 5,
Network Configuration, should answer all these questions. If reading it still leaves
you with unanswered questions, please post back.

It might be interesting to note the release of Slackware-12.1 is imminent.
You will probably want to update, or install it fresh, when it's released.

Also, if you post your Slackware threads in the Slackware forum, you'll get
faster attention from Slackers. Ubuntu tends to soak up the newbs well.

With Slackware it is not necessary to compile everything from source. The
fact is that Slackware is a binary based distro, but unlike Ubuntu, it does
provide all the tools necessary to compile new software if you want/need
to do so. Compiling from source is easily done in Slackware, and there
are lots of binary packages available, also.

Thanks
 

Thanks for all the information. I will start reading the material.

When I downloaded Slackware, there were 6 iso images and it looks like setup only required the first two, can you tell me what the remaining four are for?

From alphageek's torrent page: