Hi.. I'm running Mandrake Linux 9.1 with the stock kernel. Running KDE. When i boot up linux, it doesnt load my ethernet driver. After i reboot, when i head to the network manager, it doesnt even show my network card listed, so i have to tell it to find it again, which it does in a matter of seconds. Just don't know why it doesnt keep the settings after i reboot. Any info you require? Please post. I'm pretty new to linux. Just recently made my transition from windows to linux, and i'm very very pleased. So any help would be appriciated.

If you can't see your network card after a reboot, that's probably because your network card is not compiled into your kernel, but Mandrake is actually loading in the module every time. I'm a debian user so I couldn't tell you how to solve your Mandrake problem, but what most of us do, is compile the ethernet card into the kernel

If you can see your network card, but have no connection, that's because you're not bringing the network up at boot

You could try
insmod xxxx.o

at the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.local

with a 2.6 kernel use

modprobe xxxx

where xxxx is the name of the module. The modules are in

/lib/module/your_kernel

Thats how I load the module ppa for my zip drive works for me!

Sorry for the delayed reply.. Those suggestions didnt work Here is a cutout from my syslog..

Sep 27 05:57:09 localhost network: Setting network parameters: succeeded
Sep 27 05:57:09 localhost network: Bringing up loopback interface: succeeded
Sep 27 05:57:09 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module eth0
Sep 27 05:57:09 localhost ifplugd[887]: Warning: Could not get interface flags.
Sep 27 05:57:09 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module eth0
Sep 27 05:57:09 localhost ifplugd[887]: Could not get hardware address: No such device
Sep 27 05:57:09 localhost ifplugd[887]: Exit.
Sep 27 05:57:09 localhost internet: Checking internet connections to start at boot succeeded

When i do a modprobe eth0, it says it cant locate it. But if i do a modprobe tulip, it just goes to the next line, doesnt say anything. Which i take is good. When i goto Harddrake (hardware monitor/config in mandrake), under my network card it shows tulip as the loaded module. This is after i run the network wizard to get it online. Is there anyway i could tell it to look for tulip.o instead of eth0.o? Anyways, any other info or whatever you need, let me know. Thanks for the replies.

- Neverwhere

Looks like you're not loading it correctly.
maybe try bringing up your network card through network manager and then do:
lsmod

This will show you what modules you have loaded. there you'll need to locate the module for your network. that's the one you need to load at boot
(maybe try running lsmod when network not working first, so you can see the difference)

One question.... How do i tell it to load a new module instead of the one its trying to? I'll go check out the lsmod in a min.... Thanks.

- Neverwhere

EDIT: When i run lsmod after a fresh boot, there is no tulip loaded, when i get my NIC card back up, it shows tulip in the list.

bump.. someone wanna help me out with my previous reply?