Ethernet Card not recognized by Mandrake 9.2
 

I am brand new to Linux and I have a Toshiba A25-S207 laptop and cannot get my internet connection to work.

The Ethernet card is Realtek RTL8139 and the wireless is Toshiba Wireless LAN card.

This wireless and ethernet seemed to be combined in the cofiguration. Is there a way for me to disable the wireless so only the ethernet connection is used by Mandrake?

Thanks,

Kitt

Hi, I have a Realtek RTL8139 ethernet card in my laptop. I run mandrake 9.1 & it works fine to connect to the internet. 9.2 would have the latest support for more hardware - including the Realtek ethernet card.

You need to give us a little more information on how you are trying to connect to the internet. Especially the following:

1. Are you using a cable modem or dialup? Do you want to use the wireless lan or not??

2. what do you see if you type at the command prompt as root -

ifconfig -a

please post the output of this ??

if you post this information up, im sure someone will be able to help you very quickly.

I would like both to work, but would be willling to start with the ethernet.

I am connected to the net via cable modem.

This is what came up from the command ifconfig -a

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:39:F8:AD:1A
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x9f00

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:2D:7E:94:78
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:12 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x100

eth1:9 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:2D:7E:94:78
inet addr:127.255.255.255 Bcast:127.255.255.255 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x100

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:74 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:74 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:7392 (7.2 Kb) TX bytes:7392 (7.2 Kb)

Thanks for the help.

Kitt

Ok, I had the same problem when I first tried to use linux with cable. The problem is that your Realtek ethernet card is not being sent a 'IP address' by your internet service provider.

There are two solutions:

1. Connect laptop directly to the cable modem.

I would guess that you need to contact your cable company - over the web on your normal PC - and 'register' the MAC address of your new laptop's ethernet card with them. The MAC address is one of those 12 digit numbers that starts with HWadr 00:00 etc.. I'm not sure which one belongs to your Realtek card, but I think it might be the 00:02:2D:7E:94:78 card. You might want to register the other card's address also.

With my cable company, it normally takes a few hours, then you can surf the net directly with your newly registered laptop. But you will need to go to Mandrake Control Centre & follow the wizard for setting up a internet connection.

2. Connect to the internet through a hub / LAN.

If your regular internet machine is set up as a 'gateway / firewall', with two network interface cards - one of these network cards would already have been registered with your ISP. The other card can be connected to a hub or switch. Your laptop (or any other new machine you buy ) can then be plugged into the hub / switch and will be able to access the internet even without registering the MAC address with your ISP. (You can use up to 254 computers on your own local network in this way with a cable modem.).

From what you have said, you are new to linux. Only a linux machine can be set up as a 'gateway' like this.

Therefore - I would first contact your cable company and see about registering your new laptop's ethernet card. Unless you do this, you will not be able to connect to the internet with it.

I would be interested to hear how you get on with this & would be grateful if you could post to let me know if the problem was this. If it is not, then we need to work through correctly setting your ethernet card for internet access.

Thanks

Thanks for the information. I had to do that with Windows as my card was not registered with my ISP. So that is done.

I downloaded Knoppix Linux which I saw on posts was good for debugging hardware. It runs only from a CD.

Knoppix was able to see both the wireless and ethernet card and I was to access the net when using this version of Linux. So it would seem there is a conflict in seeing the ethernet card.

Is there a way to delete the wireless from the Mandrake configuration so it will only see the Realtek card?

Thanks for your help so far.

Kitt

OK - so do you have a dual boot set-up on your laptop or have you installed linux over your windows set up??

I understand what you are saying about 'deleting' the wireless lan, but can you tell me if your new system is connected directly to your cable modem?? If it is, then it would be safe not to worry about your lan settings... you only need to be concerned about this if you have a firewall / router connected directly to the net & a LAN behind that. I dont think the wireless lan is the problem for you if you are directly connected to your cable modem.

If the ethernet card was seen from windows - i dont think the problem is a hardware problem. Rather it is probably to do with your ethernet configuration under linux.

Try this if your laptop is directly connected to the cable modem.:

go to mandrake control centre (assuming it is the same as 9.1 mandrake) and select the wizard for setting up a internet connection. When it comes to asking you about your computer's IP address select the option that says something like 'Automatically obtain IP address'. Reboot the system and see what happens.

Does this solve the problem?

k, i seem to be in the exact same place, wireless, realtek, and all. running linksys access point and am way to new to linux, please help

neilcpp,

I have a change in the ifconfig -a file, I cannot access the net as yet. Any ideas on what the information below means?

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:39:F8:AD:1A
inet addr:192.168.1.1 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:86 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:31 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:5784 (5.6 Kb) TX bytes:4206 (4.1 Kb)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0xaf00

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:2D:7E:94:78
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:25 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x100

eth1:9 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:2D:7E:94:78
inet addr:127.255.255.255 Bcast:127.255.255.255 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x100

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:189 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:189 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:11831 (11.5 Kb) TX bytes:11831 (11.5 Kb)

DHCP problem
 

:Pengy: I am sure that the problem is in your Ethernet Card NOT being assigned a IP address by your internet service provider , each time you start your system.

There is a protocol called DHCP which basically works this way:

Your laptop (with ethernet card) has a DHCP client program in it. When you try to connect to the cable modem, this client program *asks* your internet service provider's DHCP server program, to give it a IP address so it can access the internet.

If all goes well, your ethernet card should show a IP address assigened by your internet provider. When you type ifconfig -a that shows it's current status.

If a IP address cannot be obtained by DHCP, then a 'default / dummy' address is assigned to your ethernet card. I understand that this is done just to supress an number of error messages.

Your present status seems to show that your IP address is a default one (192.168.1.1). For some reason, you are not getting your internet service provider's assigned IP address. This has nothing to do with the wireless lan - I think it is definately a simple configuration problem.

Try again from the start.

1. Follow the instructions in Mandrake control centre for setting up a internet connection, making sure that you select all the right options! especially the option for 'automatically obtain IP address on boot by DHCP'. If you are unsure about any selection, please post your question here.

2. Shutdown your laptop.

3. Unplug your cable modem for a few minutes, them power it back up - BEFORE switching on the laptop.

4. Start up your laptop -

Can you access the internet now on the laptop??

* Also are you sure that the card MAC address is registered with your ISP?? If not, that could be the reason your are not being assigened a IP number on startup.

* make sure that your laptop is connected directly to your cable modem. These procedures will not apply if you have a firewall or router between you and the cable modem!!

Although it is frustrating, believe me it is more than likely a very simple configuration problem, that you are getting closer to tracking down.!!

Hi - I was looking at the configuration of my laptop today. I only have eth0 & lo - you can swtich off the other two interfaces by the command: (do not switch off lo - the loopback interface)
As root type -

ifconfig eth1 down
ifconfig eth1:9 down

(they can be turned on by typing 'up' in place of down).
now type ifconfig -a to check that these are switched off. you should only see eth0 & lo..

Once you have done this try the wizard again to get a automatic DHCP address for eth0. (Maybe it was confused because you had several interfaces up?)

Let me know if this works..

PS make sure that eth0 MAC address was the one you registered with your isp. I think this is the ethernet card...

k, i was just having the same issue, i still have to install the right driver for the wireless to work, but i realized that i had to set my dns, feel like an idiot for not realizing this. once set, the card initialized and the internet was there. same card, so give it a try, if you don't know the dns of your provider, u should be able to find it on the net or just give them a call.

still clueless on installing driver for wireless, but at least have net back, yay!!

Congratulations Krisko1c on getting your net connection running.. you dont have to feel like an idiot. Very often i've had what seemed like complex unsolvable problems & someone has made me realise that i just missed that one vital step! I am not very experienced with linux either but people here do help eventually...

I hope kitt gets the internet working soon as well...

I changed to Read Hat 9.2 and it installed my ethernet connection. Thank you for your help.

Kitt