The following two entries sum up my dilemma, which I added to my own CLUG's Web site but with no resolution, so far.
Any suggestions from the people here would be appreciated. I am a novice and I can do simple things in a terminal window, but not much. This is after all a first install of FC5 and Mandriva and live Knoppix.
I'm sorry if it is very verbose. I tend to type as I think.
;-)
Gary
______________________

Entry 1:
Last week I finally decided to buy another system to experiment with Linux for the first time. I bought a Compaq Presario 1820NX. It is an Athlon 64 3400 with 512MB RAM and a 160 GB HD.
After playing with Windows XP on it for a day and ensuring that all was running well(including the Internet - this is important), I decided to use Knoppix to resize the partitions. I cut Windows down to about 60GB, made a 20GB FAT32 partition (for data exchange), 1 GB Swap, and several 20GB ext3 partitions, the first being for /home. I want to experiment with several variations of Linux and plan to put the various '/' on the other 20GB partitions. It is important to tell you that reaching the Internet (through a router) was automatic in WinXP. I thought I would have to do some configuration, but none was necessary. Basically the system worked perfectly out of the box.
Aha! Remember this is an Athlon ***64***, whatever problems that may entail.
So, now I installed Fedora 5 from a disk obtained at LinuxFest and I verified its reliability during the install. So, a bad DVD cannot be the problem. Well, after looking around the desktop for awhile, I decided to use the Web browser and here is where my real problems, unresolved, started. This is where I need help, if only to be told to return the computer and get another more generic one. It's just that you can get a much more powerful computer via a vendor than via say, Memory Express, for the same bucks.
Not being a computer 'god', I wasn't sure what to do or try. In place of using DHCP, I tried assigning my IP, subnet mask and Gateway IP for the router directly. No go! Then I added the Shaw DNS addresses. No go! Then I thought, let's see if I can ping Yahoo. No workee! Then I went back into WinXP to see if I could ping my gateway and my other machine (the one I'm writing this on, namely 192.168.0.100). Works OK in Windows. Back into Fedora 5 and I ping the gateway and this machine. Message: Network is unreachable. I forgot to say that I couldn't make the ethernet card, eth0, available while I had DHCP checked but at least I made it available when I added addresses in place of DHCP. But the problem really lies here, I guess, since I can't ping anything on the local network.
Sooooo, I thought, hey, let me boot up Knoppix again and at least see if another version of Linux (live CD) would prove more friendly. Same problem, same diagnostic, "Network is unreachable".
I have another week or so to return this system and get my $$$ back.
I am wondering if I just have hardware that is incompatible with Linux. I may try installing Mandriva in the next 20GB partition, but I am really discouraged since two versions of Linux already do not recognize the ethernet card. I believe WinXP, on interrogation, said the card was a 1394 Net Adapter (MS).
I am pretty discouraged after succeeding with partitioning and the mouse problem.
Will Linux only work with a carefully crafted system of hardware and not something new off the rack?
Can anyone advise, even if only to say 'return the machine' and build one locally.
Any advice would be appreciated at this point. Had Knoppix worked, I would just have attributed the problem to Fedora, and possibly the 64-bit kernel. But Knoppix isn't built for 64-bits and now I just don't know what to do.
Thanks in advance for any comments.

Entry 2:
Further to my last entry, I tried out Mandriva with the same result. I really like Mandriva's presentation - really neat and all configured well ... except for reaching the Internet. As mentioned earlier, I can't even ping my gateway and so this is one of the problems that I can't cut&paste results to show you.
Earlier this afternoon, I was near a Chapters so I went in to look at some Linux books and learned about ifconfig and netstat.
Ifconfig shows eth0 and and that it is UP. That is, I can activate it when I make it static. If I use DHCP, which I want to and which my Windows XP partition uses, I cannot even activate. So, apparently, it's one thing to activate and another to actually communicate.
I also copied down the dmesg command and performed it and all I got was 'eth1394 eth0 IEEE-1394 IPv4 over 1394 Ethernet (fw-host0)'. I actually did the grep on 'eth' and found this additional comment, which I found interesting, 'forcedeth.c: Reverse Engineered nForce ethernet driver. Version 0.32'.
Unlike my Memory Express computer, also an AMD64, which shows only one entry in Windows for LAN hardware, the Windows in the Compaq machine shows two entries, 1394 net adapter AND NVidia nForce Networking Controller.
I found in my wanderings through Mandriva that it selected the IEEE driver mentioned above, actually IEEE 1394 IPv4 Driver (IPv4-over-1394 as per RFC 2734).
So honestly I don't know what's going on.
I really am at my wits end. I need to decide in a few days whether to return the computer, which is great for the moolah and quiet, but I am beginning to think that there is a hardware incompatiblity problem here with all Linuxes (at least Mandriva, FC5 and Knoppix).
What could it be except something common like a driver. And that reversed engineering statement really has me wondering. I also don't understand the two components of the ethernet, the 1394 net adapter and the NVidia nForce controller. Maybe this is something proprietary built on the Compaq board.
So, I really never thought it was the AMD64 and I think I probably installed the 32 bit versions anyway unless the DVD has both and the kernel is built after inspecting the machine. But I doubt that since I find that if you download install DVD's, you have to select 32 or 64-bit.
So, do you or anyone else reading this suggest I just return the computer since I am banging my head against the wall with incompatibility?
Any suggestions appreciated.
Gary

Hi Gary and welcome to LQ!

IEEE-1394 is firewire, this is not what you are using for internet.
So NVidia nForce Networking Controller (eth1) is your ethernet interface. I believe there is a driver available from NVidia website. And hey, try keeping it short, folks do not bother reading long posts.

Thanks for that clarification as to Firewire. Every little bit teaches.
Sorry for the verbosity.
As mentioned in entry 2, the dmesg showed 'forcedeth.c: Reverse Engineered nForce ethernet driver. Version 0.32'. I did a Google yesterday on that and from what I gathered, nVidia has some kind of driver but the reverse engineered driver was considered superior and replaced it in Linux installs some time ago (2004??). The Linuxes that I installed, FC5 and Mandriva 2006, are up-to-date and so this preferred driver apparently remains so.
If you're suggesting that I recompile the nVidia driver into the kernel, I'm afraid I am not at that level yet. And likely won't be before I have to return the computer for full refund.
Do you (Emerson) come to the same conclusion that it is likely the driver since WindowsXP works seamlessly from the very same box? Do you think that perhaps Compaq Presarios are hardware incompatible with Linux?

I do not have any experience with this chipset. Since it shows up in dmesg it probably is installed already. Also I haven't even slightest clue how it can be configured with some GUI utility. Running 'ifconfig' from terminal would show if your NIC is functional.
And no, I do not think your computer is incompatible with Linux.
Hopefully some Mandrake/KDE specialist will take over from here.

I bought SuSE Linux 10.1 and tried putting it on a 64 bit HP PC (it said 64 bit was supported on the box). I had problems with the install and Novell support told me that even though they say it runs on a 64 bit machine, the Linux kernel has problems with 64 bit and that not all things may function they way I would expect them to function. Maybe that can be attributed to your network problem. Just my $.02

Well, thanks all for the continuing dialogue because right now I am doing nothing more because I have run out of ideas other than buying a standard ethernet card for a brand new computer, which makes little sense dollar-wise.
I got the distros from my LUG's Linuxfest (that's Calgary, Canada FYI) and the labels have 'X86 DVD' on them. I will have to contact my LUG to find out whether these install 64-bit versions or whether these are 32-bit and a whole different DVD must be downloaded for 64-bit. I suspect I have installed 32-bit versions of both Mandriva and FC5 but I will check to make sure.
But Emerson, I can't come to any other conclusion re hardware incompatiblity. As mentioned earlier, even live Knoppix wouldn't access the Web. But Windows does.
Again, thanks.

One last thing. This is done with YaST. Open Network devices - Network Card. Edit your ethernet card and choose routing. In the default gateway box, enter the DSL router address. For example, mine is 192.168.1.1. Check the IP address and subnet mask and also verify your Name Server addresses and other info is entered. Finish the configuration (click next until the updates are done). Open a browser and see if you can connect to the internet. Hope this helps...Walt

Last night I was playing around on my laptop and I did a search in fedoraforum (although I'm now working in Mandriva) under 'nForce' and found the following:
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showth...ghlight=nforce
and this referred my to an nVidia page on drivers that seemed much more recent that ones I had read about earlier.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_nforce_1.0-0310.html
My results were unsuccessful in installing the driver and it asked where the linux source was and here I faltered completely. Below is the diagnostic of the attempted installation.
nforce-installer log file '/var/log/nvidia-nforce-installer.log'
creation time: Fri Jun 16 15:36:07 2006
option status:
license pre-accepted : false
expert : false
uninstall : false
driver info : false
no precompiled interface : false
no ncurses color : false
no questions : false
silent : false
Installer install prefix : /usr
kernel source path : (not specified)
net kernel install path : (not specified)
audio kernel install path : (not specified)
proc mount point : /proc
ui : (not specified)
tmpdir : /root/tmp
Using: nvidia-installer ncurses user interface
-> Found package NVIDIA network driver for Linux-x86
-> Found package NVIDIA audio driver for Linux-x86
-> Please select packages for installation:
Selections:
NVIDIA network driver for Linux-x86 (1.0-13)
-> Starting install of NVIDIA network driver for Linux-x86
-> Checking for loaded module nvnet
-> Checking for loaded module forcedeth
-> License accepted.
-> Skipping check for conflicting rpms.
-> /proc/version is Linux version 2.6.12-12mdksmp (apatard@n1.mandriva.com)
(gcc version 4.0.1 (4.0.1-5mdk for Mandriva Linux release 2006.0)) #1 SMP
Fri Sep 9 17:43:23 CEST 2005
-> No precompiled kernel interface was found to match your kernel; this means
that the installer will need to compile a new kernel interface.
ERROR: Unable to find the kernel source tree for the currently running kernel.
Please make sure you have installed the kernel source files for your
kernel; on Red Hat Linux systems, for example, be sure you have the
'kernel-source' rpm installed. If you know the correct kernel source
files are installed, you may specify the kernel source path with the
'--kernel-source-path' commandline option.
ERROR: Installation of the network driver has failed. Please see the file
'/var/log/nvidia-nforce-installer.log' for details. You may find
suggestions on fixing installation problems in the README available on
the Linux driver download page at www.nvidia.com.

ERROR: Unable to find the kernel source tree for the currently running kernel.

That's the problem. You cannot compile kernel modules without kernel source. Do as it says, use your package manager to install kernel sources.