Hi All,

I am very new to Linux. I have it installed on a machine with Windows 98, as a dual boot. The Windows 98 partition can see my network card and the internet just fine. However, I can not get Linux to see the network.

I have a LinkSys router.

The default gateway is 192.168.1.1

The IP address of the machine is 192.168.1.101

I installed Gnome on a "workstation" version of Redhat 7.0. I am trying to use the program called Linuxconf (version 1.1.19???)

I am not sure what to place on each tab.

I see a "Basic Host Information" section. On there is a tab for an Adapter. There are other tabs for "Name Server Specifications".

How do I get the machine to see the network card, router, and ultimately the internet?

Thanks
GUI Loui

first learn if your ethernet works.. ping your gateway
if it does, check nameserver config file /etc/resolve.conf if there s a line like "nameserver 192.168.1.1"

if doesnt ping your gateway, type "ifconfig" and send us the output

Thanks for your help,
I reset all settings to their orignal values, then ran ifconfig from a command prompt. This was the result:

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr: 127.0.0.1 Mask: 255.0.0.1
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING
MTU: 3924
Matric: 1

RX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

I will try to make some changes according to my best guess at the network settings and post those results too.

Regards
GUI Loui

redhat 7.0 is very old. i had 7.3 .. i am not sure if it s same with 7.3..

ifconfig gives that u have only loopback.. possibly redhat 7.0 doesnt know your ethernet.. what s your ethernet? check "/etc/modules.conf" if a line like "alias eth0 ...." exist. if it exist u may try "ifup eth0" command.

if u dont have to work on redhat 7.0, prefer newer versions please..

okay, the problem is according to your ifconfig output is your NIC drivers has not been loaded. The best thing to do is determine what type of NIC you have and search for drivers.

Thanks very much for your help:

maxut: the /etc/modules.conf file did have values. I ran ifup eth0 and the result was "Delaying Eth0 initialization."

robe8: how do I determine the NIC. Should I look at the settings in win98 for the hardware name?

Regards,
GUI Loui

also, i would be happy to upgrade redhat but do not have any money to buy a new version. Is there a free copy I get legally obtain somewhere?

hmm.. if the line "alias eth0 .. " exist, redhat 7.0 knows your ethernet card. type "netconfig" . i hope it will works in redhat 7. if it doesnt work, try these commands "ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.101" and then "route add -net default gw 192.168.1.1"..

at last try to ping gateway again "ping 192.168.1.1".. if u can ping it, u can reach internet.

if u have a fast internet connection, u can download lots of ISO images of distors from www.linuxiso.org

You know what I had the same issue with red hat 7.0-7.2, everytime I install workstation instead of server or custom somehow networking doesn't initialize. For me I've always used Linksys NICs, so I just insmod tulip and also just to make sure add it to /etc/modules.conf then set ip address the old fashion way with ifconfig. Guiloui, so what you can do is find out what type of NIC you have either with windoze or run /sbin/lspci also can we see your print out when you type dmesg, just to make sure no problems occurred during bootup. Once we find out the type of NIC you have it just a matter of installing the appropriate drivers.

Sorry for the long delay, busy weekend.

1) I ran ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.101 and got
"No such device"
2) I then ran route add -net...... and still got
"No such device"

3) I ran /sbin/lspci and see the Ethernet Controller:
3COM Corporation 3c905 100 BaseTX [Boomerang]

4) I am downloading the images for Redhad 9.0. Will that be able to install right on top of my Redhat 7 partition without messing up the Win98 stuff?

Thanks again,
GUI Loui

OK, I downloaded what I think are the right drivers. How do I install them?

You know what, before you install the new drivers lets do a check first because you might have the drivers already, try "locate 3c59x", if locates 3c59x.o try "insmod 3c59x.o" then that should load the drivers. But if you don't have the drivers already installed just follow the directions or the readme file that came with the drivers.

Hopefully you have the proper drivers according to your kernel version because there is about 3 different drivers directly from 3com or you can download David Becker's driver at http://www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html.

Once you have compiled the driver, just run "insmod 3c59x.o" or "insmod 3c90x.o" whichever you have. Just to make sure it loaded properly, run "lsmod" and check if the drivers showed up. Now, run "netconfig" from the console and choose "dhcp" and press enter. Then type "/etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart" , that should get your ethernet card to grab an ip address from your linksys router. To test your connection type "ping www.yahoo.com" and see if you get a reply, if you do you're connected. Oh yeah, just to make sure drivers are loaded everytime you reboot, configure your /etc/modules.conf file, add this: "alias eth0 3c59x or 3c90x" depends which one you have because I'm not sure which one you've downloaded.

Ah, for a brief moment, I could see my network, even a page on another computer. But I could not see any page on the internet. In addition, all settings were lost after reboot. And now, I am back to square one. Althoug, I did notice in the bootup, the following message: Delaying eth0 initialization... failed.

The /etc.modules. file had the proper alias.

Still thinking.

But I really appreciate your help.
I have learned a lot.

Go on ebay. You can get Fedora Core 1 (ie Redhat 10) for like $7.00

"eth0 initialization... failed", means it did not grab an ip from your linksys router. So you can set it statically. You can run netconfig and set it statically or run ifconfig. If you are using netconfig don't choose dhcp and just skip down and assign an ip address of 192.168.1.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 192.168.1.1 and your primary nameserver or dns. You can get your dns from your router status page and you only need the first one. Click "OK" and then run /etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart. That should get everything up and running because if your eth0 is now showing up, drivers is installed and its just a matter of assigning ip addresses.