Hi,

I have recently acquired a free distro of Mandrake 10, but I don't want to install it if my NTL cable modem won't work. I've heard people say that Linux is generally poor with modems, and I know that NTL don't support Linux, but am desperate to get away from Windows XP!!

Not get enough disk space for a dual boot install either ;o)

If anybody can assure me that this will work, or tell me where to get the drivers, I would be most grateful and will be happily rid of Windows forever!!

Thanks in advance...

Most cable modems are hooked to the computer via a ethernet card, some usb. I have cable here at home and have not had a problem with and linux setting it up right out the box. Now if it is usb (the way it hooks to your computer) you will have to speak to someone else because I have never used it that way (heard its not very reliable). Go here http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/hardware.php3 and see if you eth card is supported (again if its hooked up that way) good luck!

I tried once to have my NTL modem attached via USB - it worked, then it didn't, then it did .... and I had no idea why - once I connected it via ethernet it worked (and still does) fine.

NTL customer service might be an absolute bag of pants (I'm *STILL* getting billed for cable TV i got cut off 5 months ago and then moved house...) but with an ethernet connection to their modems, it runs like an absolute charm.

Thanks for your answers - have got Mandrake up and running, but can't get internet working. On boot up, the verbose options show 'Bringing up interface eth0: FAILED' ehich could be the problem, but if that's not the reason, how do I set up the network? In the network connections box, do I choose ASDL, ISDN or something else? Also, what are the config options for NTL? Any help you can give me would be much appreciated (obviously), cos I'm clearly not that technical!!!

Thanks very much!

Please post the output from dmesg (type in the terminal). And also the results of ifconfig.

I always choose, dhcp and network connection - my modem is now connected to a 4 port hub and issues dhcp addresses. It should still (as I remember) work the same with a direct connection.

Hi - dunno if you need ALL this, but better safe than sorrry!!!

Thanks


Linux version 2.4.25-2mdk (nplanel@no.mandrakesoft.com) (gcc version 3.3.2 (Mandrake Linux 10.0 3.3.2-6mdk)) #1 Tue Mar 2 07:39:08 CET 2004
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 00000000000a0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000000eff0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000eff0000 - 000000000eff3000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 000000000eff3000 - 000000000f000000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
239MB LOWMEM available.
ACPI: have wakeup address 0xc0001000
On node 0 totalpages: 61424
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 57328 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
ACPI: RSDP (v000 VIA694 ) @ 0x000f7430
ACPI: RSDT (v001 VIA694 AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x0eff3000
ACPI: FADT (v001 VIA694 AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x0eff3040
ACPI: DSDT (v001 VIA694 AWRDACPI 0x00001000 MSFT 0x0100000c) @ 0x00000000
ACPI: Vendor "VIA694" System "AWRDACPI" Revision 0x0 has a known ACPI BIOS problem.
ACPI: Reason: Bogus table. This is a non-recoverable error
ACPI: BIOS listed in blacklist, disabling ACPI support
Building zonelist for node : 0
Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda5 devfs=mount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda1 splash=silent vga=788
bootsplash: silent mode.
Local APIC disabled by BIOS -- reenabling.
Found and enabled local APIC!
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 751.722 MHz processor.
Console: colour dummy device 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 1500.77 BogoMIPS
Memory: 238920k/245696k available (1603k kernel code, 6392k reserved, 1240k data, 144k init, 0k highmem, 0k BadRAM)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line)
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU: After generic, caps: 0183fbff c1c7fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: 0183fbff c1c7fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: AMD Duron(tm) Processor stepping 01
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
enabled ExtINT on CPU#0
ESR value before enabling vector: 00000000
ESR value after enabling vector: 00000000
Using local APIC timer interrupts.
calibrating APIC timer ...
..... CPU clock speed is 751.7284 MHz.
..... host bus clock speed is 200.4609 MHz.
cpu: 0, clocks: 2004609, slice: 1002304
CPU0<T0:2004608,T1:1002304,D:0,S:1002304,C:2004609>
mtrr: v1.41 (20040107) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20040116
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfb3d0, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: ACPI tables contain no PCI IRQ routing entries
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
PCI: Using IRQ router VIA [1106/0686] at 00:07.0
Applying VIA southbridge workaround.
PCI: Disabling Via external APIC routing
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x07 (Driver version 1.16)
Software Suspend Gzip Compression Driver v1.0
Software Suspend LZF Compression Driver v1.0
Software Suspend Swap Writer v1.0
Starting kswapd
kinoded started
VFS: Disk quotas vdquot_6.5.1
devfs: v1.12c (20020818) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
devfs: boot_options: 0x1
vesafb: framebuffer at 0xd0000000, mapped to 0xcf800000, size 1875k
vesafb: mode is 800x600x16, linelength=1600, pages=16
vesafb: protected mode interface info at c000:7f88
vesafb: scrolling: redraw
vesafb: directcolor: size=0:5:6:5, shift=0:11:5:0
Looking for splash picture.... silenjpeg size 14856 bytes, found (800x600, 14808 bytes, v3).
Got silent jpeg.
Got silent jpeg.
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 92x32
fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device
Detected PS/2 Mouse Port.
pty: 1024 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.1-alpha (2004-01-01) with HUB-6 MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 32000K size 1024 blocksize
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta4-2.4
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:07.1
VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: VIA vt82c686b (rev 40) IDE UDMA100 controller on pci00:07.1
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xd000-0xd007, BIOS settings: hdaMA, hdbMA
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xd008-0xd00f, BIOS settings: hdcMA, hddio
hda: FUJITSU MPD3108AT, ATA DISK drive
hdb: WDC AC21200H, ATA DISK drive
blk: queue c0444ac0, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
blk: queue c0444bfc, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
hdc: AOPEN CD-RW CRW5224 1.06 20030129, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: attached ide-disk driver.
hda: 21095424 sectors (10801 MB) w/512KiB Cache, CHS=20928/16/63
hdb: attached ide-disk driver.
spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.
hdb: task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: task_no_data_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
hdb: 2503872 sectors (1282 MB) w/128KiB Cache, CHS=2484/16/63, DMA
Partition check:
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1 p2 < p5 >
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0: p1
ide: late registration of driver.
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
Initializing Cryptographic API
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 2048 buckets, 16Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 32768)
Linux IP multicast router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
SoftwareSuspend2: Swapwriter: Image location doesn't begin with 'swap:'<1>Swsusp 2.0-rc4: Missing or invalid storage location (resume2= parameter). Please correct and rerun lilo (or equivalent) before suspending.
Swsusp 2.0-rc4: kswsuspd starting
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
Freeing initrd memory: 269k freed
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Mounted devfs on /dev
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:08.0
scsi0 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.36
<Adaptec 2940 Pro Ultra SCSI adapter>
aic7880: Ultra Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 16/253 SCBs

(scsi0:A:4): 10.000MB/s transfers (10.000MHz, offset 15)
Vendor: PLEXTOR Model: CD-ROM PX-20TS Rev: 1.02
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Mounted devfs on /dev
Freeing unused kernel memory: 144k freed
Got silent jpeg.
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10f
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 07:52:37 Mar 2 2004
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:07.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:07.3
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xd400, IRQ 5
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:07.3
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:07.2
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xd800, IRQ 5
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usbdevfs: remount parameter error
hub.c: new USB device 00:07.2-1, assigned address 2
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 4 ports detected
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,5), internal journal
Adding Swap: 818960k swap-space (priority -1)
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778) [PCSPP,TRISTATE]
hub.c: new USB device 00:07.2-1.2, assigned address 3
usb.c: USB device 3 (vend/prod 0x5fe/0x11) is not claimed by any active driver.
parport_pc: Via 686A parallel port: io=0x378
imm: Version 2.05 (for Linux 2.4.0)
ppa: Version 2.07 (for Linux 2.4.x)
WARNING - no ppa compatible devices found.
As of 31/Aug/1998 Iomega started shipping parallel
port ZIP drives with a different interface which is
supported by the imm (ZIP Plus) driver. If the
cable is marked with "AutoDetect", this is what has
happened.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,65), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
fealnx.c:v2.51 Nov-17-2001
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 00:09.0
eth0: 100/10M Ethernet PCI Adapter at 0xec00, 00:02:44:44:3c:e8, IRQ 10.
input: USB HID v1.00 Mouse [Cypress Sem. PS2/USB Browser Combo Mouse] on usb1:3.0
hid-core.c: v1.8.1 Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz>
hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
usb.c: registered new driver usbmouse
usbmouse.c: v1.6:USB HID Boot Protocol mouse driver
ip_conntrack version 2.1 (1919 buckets, 15352 max) - 320 bytes per conntrack
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
inserting floppy driver for 2.4.25-2mdk
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
hdc: attached ide-cdrom driver.
hdc: ATAPI 40X CD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
imm: Version 2.05 (for Linux 2.4.0)
ppa: Version 2.07 (for Linux 2.4.x)
WARNING - no ppa compatible devices found.
As of 31/Aug/1998 Iomega started shipping parallel
port ZIP drives with a different interface which is
supported by the imm (ZIP Plus) driver. If the
cable is marked with "AutoDetect", this is what has
happened.
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 4, lun 0
sr0: scsi-1 drive
sr0: Failed to sense mmc-3 profile
Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).
PCI: Found IRQ 12 for device 00:07.5
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:07.5 to 64
lp0: using parport0 (polling).
Looking for splash picture.... found (800x600, 11943 bytes, v3).
Splash status on console 0 changed to on
Looking for splash picture.... found (800x600, 11943 bytes, v3).
Splash status on console 1 changed to on
Looking for splash picture.... found (800x600, 11943 bytes, v3).
Splash status on console 2 changed to on
Looking for splash picture.... found (800x600, 11943 bytes, v3).
Splash status on console 3 changed to on
Looking for splash picture.... found (800x600, 11943 bytes, v3).
Splash status on console 4 changed to on
Looking for splash picture.... found (800x600, 11943 bytes, v3).
Splash status on console 5 changed to on
application bug: crond(2093) has SIGCHLD set to SIG_IGN but calls wait().
(see the NOTES section of 'man 2 wait'). Workaround activated.
imm: Version 2.05 (for Linux 2.4.0)
ppa: Version 2.07 (for Linux 2.4.x)
WARNING - no ppa compatible devices found.
As of 31/Aug/1998 Iomega started shipping parallel
port ZIP drives with a different interface which is
supported by the imm (ZIP Plus) driver. If the
cable is marked with "AutoDetect", this is what has
happened.

And here is the ifconfig stuff.... (bit more reasonable in size!!)

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:44:44:3C:E8
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:56690 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:3405420 (3.2 Mb) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:10 Base address:0xec00

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:160 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:160 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:12026 (11.7 Kb) TX bytes:12026 (11.7 Kb)

ok, you should just need to request an IP address for the interface. try one of these
that should give you an ip with a bit of magic. as long as the command completes, probably silently, run ifconfig and route to see what you were given.

Man,

Guess who's browsing in Linux!!!! You are a genius!!! Thanks very much...

Only thing is, do I have to run dhclient every time I boot up, or is there any way of making it happen automatically? (When I rebooted it had lost it again)

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Linux kicks ass...

oh no, not at all. you can do this in MDK's silly control centre somewhere, but at the pointy end, edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0, and it should include this...
that *should* be all you need.

Genius... hmm.. well either way, if you would kindly forward on your bank account details and we can proceed with the successful problem resolution payment program.

Howdo!

The content of my ifcfg-eth0 are as follows, but I'm still having to run dhclient when I boot up... Any suggestions??

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
ONBOOT=yes
MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=no
NEEDHOSTNAME=yes

Cheers,
Cheekyal