I'm trying to learn this Linux thing, after years and years of Windoze, and the one stumbling block I ALWAYS have is the NIC. Right now I'm running Redmond Linux (Caldera derivative I believe) on an Abit BE6-II, Celeron 533, etc. etc, with a 3Com 3C905 NIC.

The loopback is "up" and the 3c59x module loads "OK" at startup, but I can't get any responsiveness from the card. I can ping on the loopback, but can't get to the network.

dmesg shows that the eth0 is:
transmit timed out
etc. etc.
then 15 transmits with status 0000006e and 8000006e
then "eth0: Resetting the Tx ring pointer"

I would like to set this up to use DHCP, but the DHCP looks and looks, but finds nothing. My Windoze boxen on the same network are all DHCP, from my router. Currently my Linux box is manually configured to x.x.0.15 and the others in the network are x.x.0.1 - x.x.0.32 (there's only 3 or 4, none on .15 so there isn't a conflict or anything)

I would welcome ANY solution (except installing RedHat) at this point, as long as it gets my box on the 'Net. I need to learn Linux to broaden my career potential, but I can't learn an OS unless I use it everyday (without the Internet, or any networking, it really will just sit there like a heap)

I've just started to configure this system, and I can choose between this NIC and a RealTEk 8139 (same problems so far), and can download any distro (again, no RedHat plz) if you can just help me get onto the Internet.

Thanks,
Z

hello

erm.. is the network interface really up? you said, you pinged yourself on the loopback (to localhost on 127.0.0.1) but this aint no "real" network interface. did you set up the interface by

1. loading the correct module with modprobe?
2. configured it with ifconfig?
3. is the eth0 alias set up in /etc/modules.conf?
(or do you use a built-in module?)

besides: is your NIC an older one? i mean a ISA card? in this case, you have to reserve the appropriate IRQ for the card (BIOS and module parameter) (i had such a problem once...)

if all this worked fine then you should be able to ping.

good luck

cya

raven

hrrmm...

Well, the GUI "helper" says that it's up, but I'm beginning to doubt that things reliability.

lsmod shows all the modules I have, and which are used, and it says that the 3c59x is Used (1)

The module is from the install process, it auto-detected and loaded that itself.

ifconfig lists:

UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST

however, this doesn't change to "down" when I ifdown eth0

interestingly, ifup eth0 returns
SIOCADDRT: File Exists
eth0: initialization failed

regardless the oh-so-useless GUI still reports the card as up and running.

the card is a PCI, 3c905 (Boomerang) and the IRQ is 10, addr 0xa400, and nothing shows to be conflicting with that on cat /proc/ioports

I would LOVE to get this working with DHCP through my Netgear RT311, but I'll settle for static in a heartbeat, so long as I can see the network.

Thanks, any more suggestions (anyone?)
My distro GUI seems junky, so bash commands welcome.

how about the aliases as i said? command:

more /etc/modules.conf

is there a line that reads alias eth0 [driver_name]?

give it a try

cya

OK, the alias is in there (I'm assuming placement doesn't matter, it didn't appear as if the other entries might create dependencies). Now, following a reboot the device doesn't throw an error when I ifup eth0, and now, hooray, I can ping my own address but not my gateway or any other IPs on the network.

do I need to mess with 'route' at all?

it lists
192.168.0.0
127.0.0.1
default

Default shows the proper gateway information.

Thanks,
Z

I'M ON LINUX!!! COMPLETELY!!! IT WORKS!!!!!

Ok, enuff excitement.

Here's the deal. I ditched Redmond Linux. Who knows what was wrong with my install, but as far as THIS n00b is concerned, Redmond Linux is NOT an easy distro to setup. It wouldn't detect ANY NIC I put in it. Just this morning, my Mandrake 8.1 finished downloading, and I burned and installed it., with a trick.

I put 4 different NICs in the box, plus my video card. I hooked them all into a switch that connected to my router, and installed Drake. It autodetected 2 of the 4, and had config problems with the other two. Who cares? I've even got DHCP working! I pulled all but one of the cards out (left one it had found) and then reinstalled.

Sure, it's a crappy fix, but it WORKED! and I never have to use Windows AGAIN!!! (Except when I'm at work, or helping friends, or can't figure out Linux, or.... ok, maybe I spoke too soon....)

Thanks for your help, hope this gets someone else online and functioning as well.

I'll be back,
Z