Hi im running im running a slackware 7.1 console on a thinkpad 760ed, (i plan to install the rest of slackware via network) however i cannot recieve net access. I run netconfig under DHCP(because i have a cable modem) and it doesnt work. but the 100mb and link light are on i still get nothing. the pcmcia card i am using is a net gear fa410tx and it is plugged into a dss-5+ switch

PS i want to use slackware 7.1 not another distribution because it comes with xfree86 3.3.6(becasue the thinkpad 760ed uses a trident card slackware and can be installed via floppy)
i also dont know the ip address of the laptop

First, let me say welcome to LQO.....Now on to the fun!

Just a WAG here, but does Slack 7.1 even support PCMCIA or did you install a kernel with PCMCIA support? The blinking light just means that the hardware is working, it doesn't mean that Slackware has installed it.

I'm curious as to why you think you need that exact version of xfree86. I'd think that later versions of xfree86 would also support whatever 3.3.6 supports.


I'd give serious consideration to bumping up to at least Slack 8.1 if not 9. I haven't been using Slacware that long, but I believe there have been some significant improvements since 7.1 and the later Slack versions might do a better job at picking up your network and video cards.

Ok here are some answers to your questions:
A.) any version of xfree86 over 3.3.6 does not support trident video cards, which is used in the thinkpad 760ed, so that is why i chose slack 7.1, also because i heard it runs very well on the 760 series.
B.) Linux does recognize my pcmcia nic, it says so at ETH0 and at the cardctl program

What i need to know is how to get some net acces via console

oh and yes i did install pcmcia support

Well, if you want to find out if you have an IP address, you can use the ifconfig command. If you type ifconfig eth0 it should display a bunch of information about eth0, including the IP address.

If you don't see and IP address, you could try taking the card down, and the bringing it up again with ifdown and ifup (or the more formal ifconfig eth0 down followed by ifconfig eth0 up).

If you still don't have an ip address, you may need to start looking into dhcpd.


Finally, what are you doing that convinces you that you don't have net access?

Good news i have a ip address.

Bad news i still cannot use lynx i "get the unable to connect to remote host" message, and i cannot ping anything.

P.S i need net access to download the other slackware packages

Cool. That means that eth0 is working properly and can connect to a DHCP server. That cuts down on the number of things that can be wrong and most likely just means its a configuration issue.


You'll want to take a good look at this thread , but the important bit right now would be to do:

ping www.linuxquestions.org
ping 64.179.4.146

and let us know what happens.

Also, does your laptop connect directly to the cable modem or does is go through a router?

the laptop nic conncets through a switch. And sadly none of the solutions worked

You're going to need to start posting some results for us to figure out what's going on. Did you try pinging LQO with both the domain name and the IP address? If so, what happened? Also, try running route -n and post those results too.

Route -n results came back as
Keneral IP routing table

Destination | Gateway | Genmask
| 24.238.78.0 | 0.0.0.0 | 255.255.255.0
| 127.0.0.0 | 0.0.0.0 | 255.0.0.0

(contined)

| Flags | Metric | Ref | Use | Iface
| U | 0 | 0 | 0 | et0
| U | 0 | 0 | 0 | lo


also the ping results came back negative

P.S im sorry some of the columns are out of alignment because i cant seem to fix them.

Well, at least part of the problem is that you don't have a gateway. When I run route -n, I get back something similar to what you've posted, but also a second line for eth0 with an IP address in the Gateway column. In my case, that address is 192.168.1.1, which is my router. That line also has the flag set as UG, not just U (see man route for an explanation).

You might want to go back and use netconfig to re-configure your settings. You could also try searching the forums for advice on netconfig.

Finally, I'm going for a brief holiday, so if I'm not responding to your posts, its just because I'm not online

If you have more questions, just bump up this post and hopefully someone else can help.

I tried netconfig and that didn't work either.

Anyone have any suggestions?