I have an old distro of Mandrake (7.2) that I have installed to my second hard drive. When I got the driver for my onboard LAN port from Intel's support site (using XP), Linux labeled it "Intel EtherExpress 100", and then failed to recognize the device when I tried to configure it. The documentation gives loads of IDs of devices that the driver supports, but I cannot seem to match the numbers up (no number on the device's label matches the pattern Intel is giving me), so I can't help but assume that I have the wrong driver. It also labels my device as CNR instead of onboard PCI.

I figured that a later version may solve this, so I downloaded Mandrake 9.1. Before I run the upgrade and go through configuring the system again, I just wanted to find out if anyone knew whether or not Linux has any support for Ethernet devices that are onboard?

Also (completely unrelated), do specific distro versions have a certain kernel that it can run with, or can you upgrade to the latest stable one available? For example, 7.2 was packaged with 2.2.17, but would I be able to upgrade the kernel to 2.4.21?

Thanks

Which motherboard are U using. It should be easier to determine the Intel chipset you're usng if we know the MoBo. Also, if you can look at the motherboard, the chip will have its part written on it.

As for support, both Mandrake 9.1 and RedHat 9.0 support most onboard ethernet chipsets that are NOT gigabit (they're not so good "out-of-CD" with on-board gigabit ethernet, though Mandrake 9.1 recognized mine no problem.)

-G

The mobo is an AOpen AX4GE-N

The part number written on the chip is: P35-1B1-1FA9

This was confusing to me because the part number didn't seem to match the format the Intel documentation was looking for, but there also was not another label anywhere near the port/chip that had the information I was looking for.

Yes, that does not look like chipset name to be sure. What are U running on your other partition? Windoze something or other? Can you go into the device manager and find out what Windoze thinks it is?

The AOpen MoBo manual is useless:
On the strength of Intel ICH4 on board, it provides 10/100 Mbps Ethernet for office and home use.
Is as specific as they get.

-G

You just need to get the latest Software Build from intel, and compile the driver under your distro. Then just mod probe for e100. The latest Intel Build also has support for all of intel's GIG cards as well. The e100 driver will work for LOMs (Lan on Motherboard) as well as stand up NICs.

go to:
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scri...A&submit=Go%21

unzip, untar, to a make install...you will have to have gcc and your kernal source installed, then just modprobe and you should be off to the races.

-dubman