Subjet: XIRCOM ethernet PCMCIA card not working on ThinkPad 600 with Lubuntu 12.04

I'm trying to give a new live to an old IBM laptop ThinkPad600 and successfully installed Lubuntu 12.04 from alternate CD. It has two PCMCIA slots: one with the XIRCOM CEM33 ethernet card and the other with a wireless card that was recognized and works ok. I get wireless internet and have already got the updates from the Update Manager, however I'd prefer to use the wired network, but the problem is that the XIRCOM PCMCIA card is not recognized properly upon installation in Lubuntu 12.04 though it was recognized and worked just fine in earlier versions of Lubuntu and Xubuntu 10.10.

I have browsed plenty of threads with related subjects to no avail and some go ... cold even on the launchpad of developers chat. Some could get around just by unplugging are re-plugging the card (soft or hard), but that does not work for me. I feel that it could be just a matter of correct settings or maybe recompiled driver for the newer versions of Ubuntu, but I'm just a newbie, so the call might be astray. Some indication comes from the result of

sudo cat /var/log/dmesg | grep -i eth

[ 27.829212] xirc2ps_cs 1.0 eth0: Xircom: port 0x2e8, irq3, hwaddr 00:80:c7:e1:87:de
[ 29.843991] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[ 37.056813] xirc2ps_cs 1.0 eth0: media 10BaseT, silicon revision 3

Thanks in advance for any assistance,
Mihu

Great news is the wireless on a pcmcia slot. That is almost unheard of.

The answer to the pcmcia to lan card may be to get a supported card or a usb to lan instead.

Gefro: But the XIRCOM PCMCIA card seems to be recognized upon installation (and therefore assume still supported as it was detected and working just fine on the previous versions of Lubuntu as 10.10 for ex.) - therefore I infer it's not a matter of incompatibility, but rather a matter of finding/enabling the right settings/drivers/modules for this card in the new release of Lubuntu 12.04. Any idea where or what could be tweaked around to make it responsive?

Oldest IBM Laptop I have is a IBM A22M. It runs Antix.

To find the chip and search for a work around for the Xircom card. Me. I would go to

http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/

To find the chip on that card and see what modprobe I would need to do to enable it via search on google. Then look at ifconfig -a to see if it was picked up.

Congrats getting Lubuntu to run on that IBM 600. I like AntiX better though on Legacy gear. Personal preference is all though.

"lspci -a" shows the following:
--------------------------------------------------------------

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:80:c7:e1:87:de
inet6 addr: fe80::280:c7ff:fee1:87de/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 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:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:3921 (3.9 KB)
Interrupt:3 Base address:0x2e8

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:2352 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2352 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:409222 (409.2 KB) TX bytes:409222 (409.2 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:09:5b:69:fc:a0
inet addr:10.100.20.94 Bcast:10.100.20.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::209:5bff:fe69:fca0/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:84649 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:34505 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:68287102 (68.2 MB) TX bytes:4220905 (4.2 MB)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
any clues? ('cause I could find nothing on that site)

eth0 looks to be your wired connection via the xircom pcmcia card being picked up. I guess that was a typo for lspci when you meant ifconfig.

I don't run Lubuntu so I don't know what it uses for connection manager. I run Wicd in LXDE desktop in AntiX.

So your Xircom card seems to be loaded and working in Lubuntu. All you need to do is connect to eth0.

I wonder with hardline connected what you would get with

Also. to double check and see if Xircom driver is loaded

"ifconfig eth0 up" doesn't echo anything at all, while "lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net" only detects the wireless connection:
---------------------------------------------------------------
01:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212/AR5213 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0013] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Netgear Device [1385:4600]
Kernel driver in use: ath5k
Kernel modules: ath5k
----------------------------------------------------------------
but how do I get/force/re-enable the connection manager to set the recognized XIRCOM PCMCIA card to eth0?

Ok. try

If your Xircom card does not show with that output. I don't know what else to suggest.

I don't use Network Manager. So no clue how to walk you through it.

"hwinfo --short" lists the following relevant infos:
----------------------------------------------------------------
[...]
network:
wlan0 Atheros AR5001X+ Wireless Network Adapter
eth0 Xircom CreditCard Ethernet+Modem 33.6
network interface:
lo Loopback network interface
eth0 Ethernet network interface
wlan0 WLAN network interface
[...]
unknown:
FPU
DMA controller
PIC
Timer
Keyboard controller
/dev/lp0 Parallel controller
Unclassified device
[...]
Unclassified device
Xircom CreditCard Ethernet+Modem 33.6
Serial controller
--------------------------------------------------------------
meanwhile "hwinfo --netcard" lists this info:
--------------------------------------------------------------
16: PCI 100.0: 0282 WLAN controller
[Created at pci.318]
Unique ID: y9sn.KkEq0Vztxh0
Parent ID: _Znp.d00z6MAYjf5
SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/0000:01:00.0
SysFS BusID: 0000:01:00.0
Hardware Class: network
Model: "Atheros AR5001X+ Wireless Network Adapter"
Vendor: pci 0x168c "Atheros Communications Inc."
Device: pci 0x0013 "Atheros AR5001X+ Wireless Network Adapter"
SubVendor: pci 0x1385 "Netgear"
SubDevice: pci 0x4600
Revision: 0x01
Driver: "ath5k"
Driver Modules: "ath5k"
Device File: wlan0
Features: WLAN
Memory Range: 0x1c000000-0x1c00ffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
IRQ: 11 (53891 events)
HW Address: 00:09:5b:69:fc:a0
Link detected: yes
WLAN channels: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 36 40 44 48 52 56 60 64
WLAN frequencies: 2.412 2.417 2.422 2.427 2.432 2.437 2.442 2.447 2.452 2.457 2.462 5.18 5.2 5.22 5.24 5.26 5.28 5.3 5.32
WLAN encryption modes: WEP40 WEP104 TKIP CCMP
WLAN authentication modes: open sharedkey wpa-psk wpa-eap
Module Alias: "pci:v0000168Cd00000013sv00001385sd00004600bc02sc00i00"
Driver Info #0:
Driver Status: ath5k is active
Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe ath5k"
Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
Attached to: #9 (CardBus bridge)

40: PCMCIA 01.0: 0200 Ethernet controller
[Created at pcmcia.84]
Unique ID: M7bu.0mcNeSQeR_8
Parent ID: ruGf.d00z6MAYjf5
SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.1/1.0
SysFS BusID: 1.0
Hardware Class: network
Model: "Xircom CreditCard Ethernet+Modem 33.6"
Hotplug: CardBus
Socket: 1
Vendor: pcmcia 0x0105 "Xircom"
Device: pcmcia 0x110d "CreditCard Ethernet+Modem 33.6"
Driver: "xirc2ps_cs"
Driver Modules: "xirc2ps_cs"
Device File: eth0
HW Address: 00:80:c7:e1:87:de
Link detected: yes
Module Alias: "pcmcia:m0105c110Df02fn00pfn00pa2E3EE845pb8D035F8Epc80609023pd83DBF271"
Driver Info #0:
Driver Status: serial_cs is active
Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe serial_cs"
Driver Info #1:
Driver Status: xirc2ps_cs is active
Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe xirc2ps_cs"
Extra Info: Xircom, CreditCard Ethernet+Modem 33.6, CEM33, 1.00
Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
Attached to: #10 (CardBus bridge)
------------------------------------------------------------------
which shows that they are both present and recognized, but only the wireless one is functional. What happens with the wired one? Why is not picked up as well? In previous versions of Ubuntu kernels (10.10) it was working just fine!

Like I said . Network Manager handles everything I think in /etc/networkmanager

http://live.gnome.org/NetworkManager/SystemSettings

And I hate using gnome depends in my Window managers like Fluxbox, Icewm, and LXDE so I use Wicd-GTK instead. I am not telling you to use Wicd-GTK instead of Network Manager. Just stating what I use for a gui connection.

Shoot. They closed the thread.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1844755

Anyways. Tons of info for you to go through in there since your Xircom card is loaded with a driver. Eth0 shows up in if-config. Network Manager is what is giving you hissy fits connecting eth0. Welcome to the Jungle.

rokytnji: thanks for your input; however, in spite of all this reading, I'm still stuck. Any new ideas?