Help adding PCMCIA network cards to Slackware 11
 

I've been searching all over trying to figure out how to get my Slackware box to detect my 2 PCMCIA wired nics. Specs are:

Dell Latitude CPi (old, I know...)
Compaq 10/100 PC Card (series NNB108)
Xircom "Credit Card" Ethernet 10/100+ and Modem 56 (model: CEM56-100.
Slackware 11 (kernel 2.6.21.5)

Both cards work under Ubuntu 9.04 on the same hardware so I know they are both working and linux compatible.

Checking the /var/log/messages file I see entries when I insert or remove the card. States that a PCMCIA card has been added/removed however other than the /messages log entry there is no other activity that I notice. No lights on the NIC card dongles either.

Most of the reading I've done on the net indicate that there should be a /etc/pcmcia/network.opts file but I don't even have the /etc/pcmcia directory.

Sure would appreciate some guidance on where to go or what to do to get these two PCMCIA nics up and running. Thanks!

Are you sure the driver is installed?

I am not really a slackware guy so I have no idea if slackware has this preinstalled or not but here is a package of
PCMCIA drivers and all kinds of other stuff for making PCMCIA work in Linux.

http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/

If you search through the list of supported cards yours is in the list.

If you have already installed this(or Slackware has it already installed) then I would look at the HOWTO and other documentation on that page, looks like they have allot of it ;)

Hope that helps.

Thanks ADxD7. Turns out that I don't have the drivers on the laptop. Didn't even have PCMCIAUTILS installed (didn't know I needed that). Now I've downloaded and installed the PCMCIAUTILS from the slackware respository and I think it's working. I've also downloaded a driver for the xircom card, but now comes the hard part. Not sure how I install the driver for the network card.

Still looking for the driver to the Compaq 10/100 PC Card part no 335511-003.

Can anyone offer advice on how to install the drivers on Slackware 11?

Hope http://www.basicconfig.com/linuxtips...lackware_linux may provide you some hint.

Loaded xirc2ps_cs. What's next?
 

Ok. I'm really stumped here, and it looks like I'm not the only one. I found the following blog entries here from StuartD describing my situation exactly (same laptop and pcmcia nic cards). After a well documented attempt it looks like he opted to upgrade to slackware 12. Unfortunately I'm not able to do that and am stuck with v11.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...l-laptop-2185/

I really need some help figuring out how to get the xirc2ps_cs module permanently up and running. I have successfully loaded it using "modprobe xirc2ps_cs". Now it shows up in the lsmod but my eth0 still is not up and running. Can't get beyond this step.

1. How do I configure the xirc2ps_cs module and get my eth0 up and running.
2. How do I make this permanent so it happens every time.

Sure appreciate any help that might be out there. Again, I need to stick with Slackware 11 so upgrade (unfortunately) isn't an option. Thanks in advance.

Ok, so it turns out that I needed to modprobe the driver 'xirc2ps_cs' in my rc.modules-(release) file. Once I did that I ran cardmgr and they showed up. I realize that cardmgr is deprecated but it works now and I can't figure out how to get it to work with pcmciautils. Maybe I'll tackle that a bit later. For now they are pretty much loaded and up.