I loaded redhat linux 9.0 on dell inspiron 5100 laptop this morning.

For some reason, it's not picking up the built-in network card.

I called dell tech support and they told me that the internal NIC was a Broadcom 440.

I used the 'neat' command to get the configurations and hopefully make it work but no luck.

any ideas?

thanks.

actually I found the source code for the card:

Broadcom BCM4401 for linux.

hxxp://ftp.leo.org/download/pub/comp/general/devices/asus/lan/broadcom/4401/

it's all beautiful now.

Thanks.

Hey, I have almost exactly the same problem - I just acquired a Dell Inspiron 1100 and am installing Redhat 9. I downloaded the drivers from the link you mentioned, but am not sure of the best way to proceed. Since Redhat 9 uses a newer kernel, would a recompile be necessary? My linux experience is touch and go and some aspects I'm completely new at. What did you end up doing?

Pat

no worries Pat. Just unzip it, read the readme file and you will be all set.

No kernel recompilation, no nothing. Just load the modules to the kernel.

But just read the step-by-step readme file and you can get it done in like 2 minutes.

You can activate your internal nic by using neat

enjoy!
randomX

I know it is pretty late to be replying to your email ...
anyway I installed Redhat 9 on a Dell Inspiron 5100 Laptop. And as it turns out the network card is giving problems in that I think the driver has not been installed .

I got the driver from the site that you mentioned

hxxp://ftp.leo.org/download/pub/comp/general/devices/asus/lan/broadcom/4401/

and read the installation instructions as you suggested and did pretty much what they asked me to do but when I did

cd src
make

I got a huge number of errors and further I tried

insmod bcm4400.o

and from what I understand there was no insmod executable present.

please reply with your suggestions

thanks

Anand

recently i tried installing linux 9 on my inspiron 5100, after installation when i restart it directly goes to win XP.My boot loader is not being detected.

here's how i partitioned my hdd
C: 6Gb d:7gb e:7 and F 8

I installed linux on my D drive. i tried using both LILO and GRUB, i also took care of 1024 cylinder limit.i would appreciate if someone can resolve my problem

The issue could be a matter of where you installed GRUB. The exact procedure the computer goes through on bootup is still somewhat of a mystery to me, but for GRUB to take precedence over a windows boot loader, it must have a presence (stage1) in the MBR. Upon bootup, stage1 of GRUB is active and at some point presumably passes the buck to a "stage2" which is typically in your linux root partition (or boot, if you installed GRUB there). In addition, there is a config file (grub.conf) that GRUB uses to tell where to boot any other OSs on your machine. This file is in the same general area as stage2, along with a bunch of other GRUB files. Anyway, to install GRUB correctly, go here http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue64/kohli.html . The areas of most interest are Steps 2 & 3.

GRUB can boot Linux of course, but can also activate the windows boot loader and allow windows to boot itself. I believe the windows boot loader can also boot linux/GRUB if you correctly edit the boot.ini file in your windows system partition.

If you have any other questions, let me know and I'll see if I can help. Good luck!!

By the way, the easiest way to get to a GRUB console - if you don't simply have a GRUB boot floppy - is to boot off the redhat9 install cd and choose to do a "linux rescue" . Once you get to an x console, type "grub" to get grub going.

Have been running rh9 on Dell Inspiron 5100 for a few months now. Have been syncing a Palm Tungsten T via USB cable with Evolution. I had a problem with it not syncing the first time (ie: would time out) but sync on second and subsequent tries every time. Didn't have time to check it out but I lived with it.

Last week I did a few things at once.

. Upgraded the kernel when rh announced the security issue.
. Upgraded Evolution from 1.2 to 1.4
. Put the Palm sync icon on the task bar.

When I synced, about every 2nd sync would lock the machine. This morning, every attempt to sync has locked the machine.

The symptoms (apart from the screen, mouse etc locking up) is the two right hand lights (caps lock and the other one on the right) blink in unison.

Any suggestions? I really need to sync my palm with an email enabled software package that does to do's and I would hate to have to go back to Microsoft.

for the dell laptop inspiron 5100 follow up.
hxxp://cabibbo.physics.wm.edu/~bryan/computer/inspiron5100.html

on the palm thing, make sure you have USB enabled at the kernel level. Recompile if needed. Also make sure you gave the right permissions to the device. Like chmod 777 /dev/ttyS0 if serial or chmod 777 /dev/ttyUSB0.
A while ago for some reason my computer got stuck too, but after assign all the permissions to the device itself, it got fixed automagically.

Also, just use J-pilot. Plain and simple.
Don't use the Evolution or Gnome conduits. Tons of headaches.

Did the stuff on the page you linked to and got an error says:

Makefile:18: ***Linux kernel source tree not found. Stop.
error: bad exit status from /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.76978 (%build)

Any ideas?

J