Hi,
Since I am pretty new to Debian (used fedora2, fedora3 and Debian Sarge before), I was wondering if someone could help me search through packages on CD1 of Etch.
The problem is, it doesn't seem to install hotplug. And since I have a pcmcia network card (Xircom), I can't connect to the network nor get the packages I need through apt. And I highly doubt it will detect my usb key, though at bootup my usb slot is listed.
Can anyone help me with this?
Thank you!

UPDATE: I reinstalled win95 (just in case) and with the xircom drivers, it loads the card but I can't get an IP address. The dongle let me down. Next step: buying a pcmcia card that has an RJ-45!! But thanks to all who tried to help!

Correct, hotplug is superseeded and replaced with udev.

Thanks for the reply Dutch Master,

But still... udev won't detect my Xircom CreditCard Ethernet card. How can I solve this? Sarge was detecting it fine.
I know this is an old card, but the laptop is old too. I built this laptop to help friends of mine. They are starting a LARP (Live Action Role Playing game) and I am the only one to have internet access. I need the laptop to transport the emails so the narrators can answer them. I will use icedove with yahoo plugin (which works nicely, I've installed it previously on Sarge, though it caused problems because of the kernel I guess).

Is there any document I could read on how to configure this udev, since I need it to detect my card and that it doesn't at all?

Thank you once more.

A Linux lost newbie.

Sounds like you dont need native support (although it would be nice). Have you tried ndiswrapper?

Have you tried lspci or lspcmcia to see if the system can see the card and detect the chipset on it ?

is pcmcia-cs installed and running at startup ? (PCMCIA Card Services)

Might be as simple as loading the proper module for your NIC
modprobe pcnet_cs
or
xirc2ps_cs
xircom''tulip''cb
xircom_cb
other ?


Oh and was that a wired Ethernet card or a wireless ? you didn't specify.


Your USB flash drive should work just fine.

Good thinking - I just assumed it was wireless. Ignore my last post if its a wired card.

Oops sorry for not specifying!

It is a wired card indeed (Xircom CreditCard Ethernet 10/100).
I have transferred the ndiswrapper to the laptop through my USB key, so yes this is working.
I have tried lspcmcia just like farslayer said, but it didn't return anything. I have tried modprobe xirc2ps_cs since this is the one Sarge was using (as far as I can remember) but either Etch doesn't come with xirc2ps_cs bundled in, or my card is starting to fade out...
Thanks for all your support though.

EDIT: I tried /sbin/cardctl ident
from other posts, and any option I give cardctl (status, ident and others) all give me the same answer: open_sock(): No such device
What does that mean? I installed Discover1 then rebooted.
#/sbin/cardctl ident
#No pcmcia driver in /proc/devices
What do I do next?

I know, I am just a newbie, but I want to learn so I can one day leave windows behind (except for gaming, of course)

Thanks in advance!

Seems you dont have pcmcia support.

What is your make and model of laptop? The more information we have about your system the easier it is for us to find the answers.

But for a jump start, the first place I'd look is http://www.linux-laptop.net/ - someone has probably discussed the issue, even if not for Etch. The linux backend is pretty much the same across all distros, so if you used a Suse howto (for example) it would give you a relatively close idea of how to get it to work in Etch.

Here I go...

This laptop was given to me a little more than a year ago by my boss where I did my junior networking technician internship...

Toshiba Satellite Pro 460CDT
40Mb of RAM
The screen resolution is supposed to be 800x600 but I can never get any distro to work over 640x400.
The sound card seems to be missing.
The network card is a Xircom CreditCard Ethernet 10/100-Ready (Model CE3B-100)

I have already looked over this website a few times, and for my machine, there was no problem, except for the fan which works rarely.

On Debian Sarge and VectorLinux 3.2 (can't get a newer version, it won't work on that laptop from what I understand), the card was detected and working fine.

Maybe an update of the system is the problem... just like WinXP to Vista... a lot of HCL problems...

I wish I could figure this out because Etch seems to be running fine on this machine... or maybe shall I change to another distro and still get thunderbird (icedove) with the yahoo plugin working? I really need those, and if I have to, I'll change back to Sarge (wish I do not have to go back though)

Thanks a lot. If you need some more info on the system, just ask. Other than that, I'm at a loss.