reaching network

lea · 07-19-2002, 08:02 AM

Hi,

i try to connect to a network via pcmcia (netgear fa411).
I installed pcmcia-cs which shows me a ready pcmcia-socket.

But "ifconfig" doesn't show me eth0.

I loaded a (hopefully) proper driver (modprobe pcnet_cs).

How do I get eth0?
How do I "bind" it to the driver (to "ifconfig eth0 ..ip.. up")?

TIA

5amYan · 07-19-2002, 08:51 AM

what does dmesg look like?

lea · 07-19-2002, 09:36 AM

Sorry, but I don't know what you mean with dmesg, but (as mentioned) ifconfig doesn't show eth0.

Trying to "ifconfig eth0 ..." shows
"eth0: Unknown interface: No such a device"

lsmod shows something like socket1 5V [ready]

shoot2kill · 07-19-2002, 07:36 PM

type dmesg at the command line to see what output it spits and what do you see when you type ifconfig

5amYan · 07-20-2002, 10:45 AM

Do you know what kind of card it is?
during boot the screen echoes it's actions is there on that says something like
bringing up eth0: [FAILED]

dmesg |more

and space bar for next page. Read through carefully and see if you can find where the NIC was probed.
here's mine.

Code:

eepro100.c:v1.09j-t 9/29/99 Donald Becker http://www.scyld.com/network/eepro100.html
eepro100.c: $Revision: 1.36 $ 2000/11/17 Modified by Andrey V. Savochkin <saw@saw.sw.com.sg> and others
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 02:08.0
eth0: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM/CA/CAM Ethernet Controller, 00:02:B3:62:B7:D8, IRQ 11.
  Board assembly a19716-005, Physical connectors present: RJ45
  Primary interface chip i82555 PHY #1.
  General self-test: passed.
  Serial sub-system self-test: passed.
  Internal registers self-test: passed.
  ROM checksum self-test: passed (0x04f4518b).

lynch · 07-20-2002, 01:03 PM

Type dmesg | less
( unless you're the fastest reader on Earth

lynch

5amYan · 07-20-2002, 01:11 PM

more
less
your choice

lea · 07-23-2002, 02:15 AM

Hi there - thanks for all of your help so far.
I try to answer all of your questions as good as I can:

* Kind of card:
Netgear FA411 10/100 16-bit pcmcia ethernet card (recommended driver: pcnet_cs or 8310 module)

* What shows ifconfig:
loopback device (lo) only - no eth0

* What shows dmesg (thx for assistance for this command) - as there is no eepro or eth0 entry I try to give you hopefully other (strange) relevant boot messages:
...
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfd8a0
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
...
scsi: <fdomain> Detection failed (no card)
NCR53c406a: no available ports found
sym53c416.c: Version 1.0.0
Failed initialization of WD-7000 SCSI card!
IBM MCA SCSI: Version 3.2
IBM MCA SCSI: No Microchannel-bus present --> Aborting.
This machine does not have any IBM MCA-bus
or the MCA-Kernel-support is not enabled!
...
3w-xxxx: tw_findcards(): No cards found.
...
Intel PCIC probe:
Cirrus PD6729 rev 00 PCI-to-PCMCIA at slot 00:13, port 0x3e0
host opts [0]: [ring] [1/6/16] [1/20/16]
host opts [1]: [ring] [1/6/16] [1/20/16]
ISA irqs (default) = 3,4,5,7,9,10,12 polling interval = 1000 ms
cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: excluding 0xcf8-0xcff
cs: IO port probe 0x0800-0x08ff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x3b8-0x3e7 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
cs: memory probe 0x0d0000-0x0dffff: clean.

Hope this helps
TIA

trickykid · 07-23-2002, 09:58 AM

Have you checked out any of the howto's at www.tldp.org for any information that help you ?

PCMCIA Howto : http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/PCMCIA-HOWTO.html

Ethernet Howto: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Ethernet-HOWTO.html

Syncrm · 07-23-2002, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by trickykid
Have you checked out any of the howto's at www.tldp.org for any information that help you ?

yeah, cause as far as i know, redhat doesn't like to auto-detect pcmcia nics. i had to set mine up manually back in the days when i used redhat. you might wanna check your sys init scripts in /etc/rc.d

lea · 07-24-2002, 02:18 AM

Yes, I read both HOWTOs many times, but unfortunately I couldn't find help.

Because of the many errors while booting (unfortunately I don't really understand what they mean) I guess that the failure is much closer to thy system (init).

Maybe I should set up my laptop new - with the pcmcia-card plugged in (if there is something like a "autodetect" during setup).

BTW I use Debian

Thanks for any comments

shoot2kill · 07-24-2002, 08:41 AM

Debian, which I think it still uses 2.2.x kernel. You need to check if your card is supported within the system. If it is not, probably you have to upgrade your current kernel and refer to the pcmcia-howto for more config options.

lea · 07-25-2002, 02:00 AM

This could be true because on one of my 3 laptos I use a 2.0.38 kernel.
But on the other 2 laptops I use 2.2.19 which shouldn't have problems with eth0.
On the other hand a "linux-on-a-floppy-disk" (tomsrtbt) I tried works perfect (eth0, dhcp).
So I guess I have a basic problem (how to define/install the eth0 interface) which most other linux user still have soved.

I'm close to give up to connect a computer to a LAN with linux (and switch after one year playing with linux back to Window$)

TIA

finegan · 07-25-2002, 06:58 PM

Straight modprobing of a pcmcia module doesn't work as cardmgr needs to know to bind it to pcmcia_core, and through that, the kernel.

If this is Debian 2.2r4 or 5 you're looking at about pcmcia-cs 3.30? right? Also, don't switch to RH or SuSe as they switched to in-kernel pcmcia and yenta_socket doesn't work well (or at all) with those old 16-bit cirrus bridges.

This may sound like voodoo, but after the machine is running, upon card insertion, does the machine make 2 identical beeps, or one beep and a low toned bonk? The first means something is bound to the card, the second means cardmgr saw a card there (there can be silence), but failed to load the right thing.

My guess is you've got a beep-bonk situation and a goofy network card, which probably means we'll just tweak /etc/pcmcia/config or get a newer pcmcia-cs. What is the dmesg right after you insert the card?

Also, what pcmcia-cs are you running now?

Cheers,

Finegan

Also

lea · 07-26-2002, 07:58 AM

Hi Finegan - you are the guide trough my darkness - you give me new hope.

All your guesses are right:
* I have the beep-bonk situation - to say it more accurate I have a silence-bonk tone while inserting my card
* A closer look to my /etc/pcmcia/config doesn't show a Netgear FA411 card
* I run pcmcia-cs-3.1.22 (deb-package) and there is a newer version (3.1.33) in the net

So 3 questions occure:
* Does it mean anything if I have one bonk-tone only (no beep first)?
* How can I "tweak" /etc/pcmcia/config (that for I would need foolproof instructions)
* I tried to install pcmcia-cs-3.1.33 but as it depends on a newer perl-version I have problems to install all necessary deb-packages (the old perl can't be removed) - but this seems to be my weekend-game

Thanks so far and TIA for all instructions.
Lea