Hi, I have a major problem where both of my ethernet cards are not detected when I try to install Debian Sarge Stable. 1 ethernet card is on a PCI-Express interface, and the other is powered by my NVidia Force 4 chipset (which I think also uses PCI-E, cnt remember). So, what should I do, should I carry on with the install, then worry about it later, or fix it now (if possible). Also, the installer hangs for ages when detecting ATA stuff.

Any info would be great, Buck

Which kernel are you trying to install? There are reverse engineered drivers for the nForce ethernet in the 2.6 kernels, not sure if it supports nForce 4 though.

Well I think Sarge installs 2.4 by default (ouch), but I'll try and find a copy of Etch (which I think 2.6 by default). The other network card is a Marvell Yukon, and both are gigabit cardsdo u know where the link is on debians site?

EDIT: FC4 works fine so I think it may be the old kernel

I found etch for i386, but I also see x86_64 (which is what I would idealy like). Debians site say the installer is working, but for x86_64 it's in red for the RC, does that mean I can still use it?

RC means release candidate, which means there thinking about this one as being the release if no one has any major problems.

Sarge does have the 2.6 kernel, When you first start the installation type linux26 at the boot prompt.

Thanks, I think it's just the 2.4 kernel is too old for PCI-E, now... Lets try

Still no look, the 2.6 kernel doesn change anything other than removing the hang when searching for ATA stuff. Anybody got any ideas. I thought that I could just install it without ethernet support, try and get the VERY latest kernel, then see what happens

EDIT: I found some drivers on NVidias site for ethernet controllers, should I try these

You could try them and, but they may need compiling if they don't have a binary to match the kernel you've installed, which means you'd need the kernel headers and gcc installed as well.

Right, I decided to install Sarge ignoring the 'no ethernet card' warning. Now I'm extracting the kernel source to allow me to install my NVidia drivers. Once I have done that, how do I enable my card (if it works), and configure it for DHCP etc...

Ay info would be great, Buck

The driver installation should do that for you. the intiate script /etc/init.d/networking is what sets up my networking, and the config files are in /etc/network

The main one is interfaces the content of mine is

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

This sets things up for dhcp. Dont forget to install dhcp though.

I just used the GUI, and I get my IP from my router, so I do not need to install DHCP

If it's any help you need the forcedeth driver for the nvidia ethernet card. I had exactly the same problem when I tried to install debian sarge, and I used the 2.6 kernel. I'm fairly new to linux so in the meantime I installed ubuntu, which loaded the driver straight away. It's a great distro but I'd really like to go for the full debian distro, especially after laying out cash for a boxed double dvd set. The problem is I have no idea how to force the installer to load forcedeth so would be interested in any solutions. Incidently, on reboot my system just went into text mode and I got an unrecognised command error when I tried typing startx.