Yes, eth0 fails at startup and ifconfig only displays lo.

At LILO I hit ctrl+x and do this:

linux ether=9,0x300,0

I've also tried it without the 'linux' and I've also tried changing '0x300' to the Base Address given after I do ifconfig -a.

For what it's worth, I have a second ethernet card (actually it's part of my motherboard and it's always reported as being a NIC, but I've never seen it/used it), so I don't know if the ether command is different.

you could try the other card that is built in. definitly a problem it sounds like with a conflict with that card, especially since it worked a few times then it won't..

my bad.. try adding eth0 at the end of the argument you were trying so it knows to use eth0 on IRQ 9..

ether=9,0x300,0,eth0

man, third page and were the only ones on this thread.. wonder if that is a record or something..

Heh, the built-in 'card' doesn't seem to exist. It's as if it's built into the mobo but there's no jack for anything.

ether=9,0x300,0eth0 ?

It should be 0x300, not the address given to me when I do ifconfig -a, correct? Also, should it be '0eth0'? ether= doesn't allow spaces.

Yeah it may be a record, lol. Thanks for being so patient with me =P

yeah try ether=9,0x300,0,eth0 with no spaces..

if you do a ifconfig and it shows eth0 with a different address, you should put that in.. but if its only showing the lo, that is a different address.

OK, rebooting to try. Is it 'linux ether...' or just 'ether' at the LILO command prompt?

"if you do a ifconfig and it shows eth0 with a different address, you should put that in.. but if its only showing the lo, that is a different address."

Umm....'ifconfig' alone only shows lo. 'ifconfig -a' (which obviously shows all, even inactive) shows a different 'Base Address'

i think either will work.. hehe.. ether... either..

try with linux in front.. but i don't think it should matter if linux is the only option to boot from.. you would want to use linux if you have a dual boot with like windows or something..

Hmm...I tried ether=9,0x300,0,eth0 and it passed eth0, but I think that was just one of the random times it works 'cause 'cat /proc/interrupts' still shows eth0 on 11.

This is probably best asked after, but whenever eth0 works (even with IRQ conflicts), RedHat's graphical login doesn't show up (its linux's text login) and X along with all the X programs run much, much slower, is there a reason for this?

i am not sure what would cause that.. i wouldn't think of any type of hardware conflict that would cause what your describing.. very strange indeed. it could be conflicting with your video card somehow then.. is the only thing i could think of.

I don't think ether= has done anything at all. From the site you gave me:

ether=IRQ,BASE_ADDR,PARAM_1,PARAM_2,NAME

Do you need the PARAM_2 (0?), because I've been doing ether=9,baseaddr,0,eth0 with baseaddr being both the 0x300 you've given me and the address I get from ifconfig -a.


Yeah. It's actually running fine now, but it still doesn't boot into it. It's not like I can't live without it booting into the graphical login, but I'd like to figure out what's doing it in case if it can cause further conflicts or whatever

Also from the site:

The ether command

The ether= argument is used in conjunction with drivers that are directly built into the kernel. The ether= argument will have absolutely no effect on a modular driver



I am still supposed to have 'alias eth0 tulip' in my modules.conf, correct? Also, it seems as if eth0 is conflicting with my usb-controller (usb-ohci). I only add this in case if you know an easier way to change the IRQ for usb-ohci (allowing eth0 to use 11).

umm.. it could be when your passing that argument for ether, it is overiding the graphical login for init 5 and going into init 3... not sure though but if its working now, wouldn't worry about it...

yeah not sure if its doing anything either with the ether argument though. it is a strange problem though indeed.

yeah rereading the howto.. i did noticed it won't affect the module for the card.

I've been following this thread and you have had some grief with this stuff. Wow... Maybe this will help.

You say there is a builtin NIC on the mobo. Try disabling it in the BIOS config. If the card you installed is PCI, you should not need anything in terms of i/o address or irq anywhere. I have run several different tulip PCI NICs and trying to set addresses and irqs mess up the PCI driver. For the most part, I've seen that PCI cards are detected and used, unless something in the BIOS is screwy or I try to set i/o addresses or interrupts. It's not really plug and play, but PCI does things a lot better.

Hmm...do you know what EMU10K1 is? It's what appears to be listed (along with usb-ohci and eth0) under IRQ 11 when everything appears to be running slowly

Thanks for the reply Malicious. I think this is more related to my graphics card, but here's some info from my BIOS:

Plug and Play Aware O/S : No (I read somewhere to turn make it no)

Allocate IRQ to PCI VGA: Yes


As for disabling the NIC, would it be named 'OnBoard LAN'? I'm disabling that.

That's the one...