I have a mini PCI Ethernet Card called 3c556, initially Mandriva 2006 could not set it up. Is there any one can tell me how to set it up in detail?

My laptop is IBM ThinkPad X20 2662-36T.

Looking a the kernel sources it is supported by the 3c59x module - try:
modprobe 3c59x
ifconfig

# modprobe 3c59x

It worked, but

# ifconfig

There is no eth0 on the list, why?

dmesg | grep 3c59x

There is the message after dmesg | grep 3c59x:

3c59x: Donald Becker and others. www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
3c59x: vortex_probe fails. Returns -22
3c59x: probe of 0000:00:0a.0 failed with error -22
Modules linked in: 3x59x mii af_packet vfat fat floppy pcmcia yenta_socket rsrc_nonstatic pcmcia_core video thermal tc1100_wmi processor ibm_acpi fan container button battery ac ide_cd loop intel_agp agpgart nvram usbmouse usbhid tsdev uhci_hcd usbcore evdev ext3 jbd sd_mod ahci ata_piix libata scsi_mod
EIP is at vortex_probe1+0xf5/0x1090 [3c59x]
[<d4d54044>] vortex_eisa_init+0x44/0x60 [3c59x]
[<d4d5407a>] vortex_init+0x1a/0x4c [3c59x]

Hmm I can't find anything, from what I know to look for, that would produce that error. How about checking what the card shows up as in harware:

lspci -v

After entering lspci -v, there is the information:

00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c556B CardBus [Tornado] (rev 20)
Subsystem: 3Com Corporation: Unknown device 6356
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 11
[virtual] Memory at f4011400 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128]
[virtual] Memory at f4011000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

After you do the modprobe 3c59x, does the network card show up with:

ifconfig -a

If it does then just set an IP address (run dhclient eth0 or dhcpcd eth0 or set a manual address ifconfig eth0 www.xxx.yyy.zzz) and if not then I guess there is more stuff to look at, like:

dmesg | grep yenta

Also, you mentioned Mini-PCI, but this card is supposed to be a cardbus aka PCMCIA card?

I have set the static IP for eth0, but it is no use. So I entered dmesg | grep yenta, there is the message:

Modules linked in: 3c59x mii af_packet floppy pcmcia yenta_socket rsrc_nonstatic pcmcia_core video thermal tc1100_wmi processor ibm_acpi fan container button battery ac ide_cd loop intel_agp agpgart nvram usbmouse usbhid tsdev uhci_hcd usbcore evdev ext3 jbd sd_mod ahci ata_piix libata scsi_mod

And it is REALLY a mini-PCI card, I have opened the case to check.

Does eth0 show when the device is enabled:
ifconfig eth0 up
ifconfig eth0

# ifconfig eth0 up

eth0: unknown interface: no such device <= This is transferred because my linux is in Traditional Chinese.

# ifconfig eth0

eth0: error fetching interface information: Device not found

Is there any other one can solve my problem?

Now I'm confused. Were you able to set an IP address for eth0, or was it not found? Did the driver load with warnings, or did it fail? Do any interfaces show up at all?

please post the output of:

ifconfig -a
lsmod | grep 3c59x

Those two lines are telling you the the module didn't init your card.

Your adapter is also showing up as Cardbus, which means that it's not a real mPCI card, it's got a cardbus adapter on it. Cardbus modules probably need to be loaded prior to trying to load the NIC drivers. Depending on your distro, try to enable pcmcia or cardbus drivers and then try loading your NIC.

Odds

I was thinking the same thing, but assumed the cardbus module was already loaded. Yenta shows up in the modules list he posted earlier and since the 3Com module is finding something that should indicate the correct pcmcia module is already loaded.