installed mandrake 8.1 with no problem. however, don't know how to install drivers for the nic-- yes, i have drives for linux from nic manufacturer. . i have checked the readme file and that gives instructions on how to *compile* the software and then install--- however, i am brand new to this file structure and need a little more guidance in where exactly to start the process- the commands are similar to #gcc and #insmod... where do i place those commands-- thank you for ANY HELP! you can also email me privately at themold@earthlink.net

martyroo
www.martyroo.com

First, what kind of network card is it? Very little of the Linux world is dependant on the manufacturer to get off their behind and give you a driver. Its probably already onboard, and just requires that you insmod the driver.

Further explanation:

The file they gave you is a blahblah.c, .c meaning it was written in C. You have the source code and are going to have to compile the driver into a module, which will create a much smaller file with a .o

gcc is the name (and also the command to start), for the compiler.

insmod is the program that will load the module into the running kernel.

If you did a default installation of Mandrake, you will have KDE as your desktop. On the bar at the bottom of the screen is going to be a shell. Click that and you can open a terminal in which to type all of those commands from the driver disk.

However, if you did a default install of Mandrake, they probably haven't given you a compiler.

This is a pain.

Again, the module is probably already there, figuring out which one to use is just a matter of what netowrk card it is.

Cheers,

Finegan

Yes, thank you- the nic is an *asound*- basically no name. It did have the ext. of c. In the readme, there were those commands to compile those and I thought that I had gone through it accurately. Should there be any sort of confirmation that it was completed successfully? I received no errors... and I don't believe that the drivers came onboard with Mandrake- i tried all the nics given when trying to configure--all failed.

thanks--
martyroo

Well, to find out if you've got the compiler necessary to build the module, from a command line, try:

gcc -v

Which will simply tell you what version of the compiler you have, which is the quickest way to know that it will work. "command not found" means you haven't got a compiler, which could lead to a number of headaches.

I'm still rather confident that the card is supported out of the box. The entire NIC world is little more than companies re-packagng each other's chipsets under different names. For instance there are something like 30 major manufacturers with probably 200 cards models between them that all work off of modifications of a DEC chipset, with 1 single Linux driver: tulip.o

The quickest way to figure out the chipset:

'lsmod'

and

'cat /proc/pci'

Just post any output from those that looks ethernet-ish. 'lsmod' is going to give the short-form information on anything PCI in your machine, whereas /proc/pci stores all of the information reported from the card.

Cheers,

Finegan

same problem as above. This is what lsmod shows..but im a total newb and dont know where to find what ill need:

es 1371(soundcard, only one im sure of)
soundcore
ac97_codec
gameport
vfat
fat
r128
agpgart
nfsd
lockd
sunrpc
af_packet
iptable_nat
ip_conntrack
iptable_mangle
iptable_filter
ip_tables
usb_uhci
usbcore
B139too
rtc

Damnit... whoops, I had an idiot attack, I meant 'lspci', lsmod lists all of the modules you already have loaded... shoot man, sorry about that, this must have been a pain to hand type. As a sideline, you want translations?

es 1371(soundcard, only one im sure of) [Yeah!]
soundcore [stacks with the sound module for the specific card]
ac97_codec [codec for the sound card]
gameport [joystick drivers... I'm almost certain]
vfat [allows you to read windows 95-Me filesystem]
fat [same as above, except goes even further back]
r128 [You have an ATI vid card]
agpgart [mobo driver, allows card to talk to kernel]
nfsd [Network file system daemon. Allows you to mount other *nix file systems remotely over a LAN]
lockd [dunno... I should]
sunrpc [Sun's Remote Procedure Call, helps with nfsd... kinda not a safe thing to have always loaded as it allows others to execute code on your machine in theory... but really, if you ever get interested in locking things down, this is about 20th on the list]
af_packet [old-school packet radio... weird]
iptable_nat [allows your machine to route for others on the lan. Runs masquerading technically]
ip_conntrack [more stuff for Masq]
iptable_mangle [again more for Masq]
iptable_filter [ditto]
ip_tables [ditto]
usb_uhci [USB Universal Host controller interface... turns USB devices into something you can mount/register as system devices... blah]
usbcore [ base level USB device controller]
B139too
^^^^^^^^<---- I'm hoping this is a typo and you meant to type 8139too... which is a netowork card driver for one of the more common chipsets on the planet, Realtek's 8139. That's your network card module!

Open a shell window, command line, its on the bar in the left-hand corner of KDE:

'ifconfig eth0 up'

next...

'ifconfig'

if there are two entries... then you have a working ethernet card. Now, to get it an IP address. How does this thing talk to the outside world? Cable, DSL... what does it use? DHCP, pppoe, static?

Oh, yeah, almost forgot:

rtc [Support for RealTimeClock, which keeps your hardware clock and the system clock updated constantly... I don't trust it.]

Cheers,

Finegan

Shell window, command line...is that different from xterm. I am using blackbox, so cant really check the kde way you said. I typed ifconfig eth0 up in xterm, command not found. Sorry for bein a pain

Blackbox... nifty, sorry in Mandrake KDE is the default so I guessed that, silly of me really. Yeah Xterm works. "command not found" probably becuase you're not root. Use 'su' to switch up to root.

Cheers,

Finegan

yup it shows up. I am at school, and connect via our network, so um.. through a ethernet cable...We use telnet to login in windows. I have info to configfure, just dont know where to put it. Also how would I log in, since its required every 8 hrs or so. I am going to check my schools webpage also, since this may be more of a question for our setup. Thanks either way, but it would be cool if you knew. Anyways, thanks for all youve done so far

Hmmm... typically university dorm LANs run under dhcp. You might just want to try:

dhcpcd eth0

from a command line... if it blinks a couple times and then gives you a new prompt, merry christmas, you have internet access. Unless they do something weird... which those buggers often do.

Cheers,

Finegan

thanks I did that, and it says already running. So I guess im set up correctly, now I gotta figure out how to log into our system, telnet gateway..... I will post it on my schools forum and see if anyone knows. Thanks for they help finegan

From the command line:

telnet location.com

Yeah, that easy, no kiddin.

Cheers,

Finegan