Here is my story. I wanted to try Mandrake 10.1 Official. The installation went fine, however after the reboot I couldn't initialize my 3Com network adapter. Since, I could'n get any help without Internet connection here I am again after re-installing Mandrake 10.1 Community. My question is what went wrong? Should I try again? Has anybody experienced the same problem? I gues I stick with Mandrake 10.1 Community. Thanks for reading this.

You didn't specify your hardware setup, which you should for starters.

It's likely that the kernel did not detect the card or it's settings.

You could also try to update in stead of install. That way you have a better chance of keeping configs.

The kernel modules are normally added or updated, not removed, so I think it could be something else, thats not configured.

To see if the module is installed mod-probe I think, and cd /proc lspci -v will show hardware. beware of irq conflicts too.

happy hunting.

The update should be your best, easy bet.

Probably Mandrake 10.1 Official did not detect my hardware properly, however Mandrake 10.1 Community did it right. I did not change my hardware. I may try to update then, although some people do not recommend update from community to official. Is there any danger? At worst I can reinstall the community again.

I forget to mention my hardware:
MB Asus P4P800 with integrated 3Com Ethernet adapter, P4 2.8G FSB 800, 512Meg RAM dual channel
Soundblaster Live
ATI Radeon 9600Pro
80G hard disk

Which 3Com adapter?

to clean up a little for GlennsPref:

modprobe:

Loads (or unloads) a module from the kernel. You would use this if the module wasn't yet loaded for some reason

lsmod:

Lists modules that are loaded, and which other modules are using them.

lspci:

Very useful. This gives you information about devices on your PCI bus. Even if a device is integrated into the motherboard (video, ethernet, usb hub, etc.) they are very often technically on the PCI bus. "lspci -v" I didn't know about this flag before (thanks Glen!). This is the same thing, but gives you much more detail.


Anyway, I would use lspci to get information on your card. If/once you know what module it uses, you can use lsmod to see if it has been loaded yet.

P.S. You dont need to cd into /proc before using any of these. Much of this information (not all of it, and more) can be found in /proc though.

Thank you, gd2shoe, for the correction. ls for list.

v for verbose.

I'm sure you'll get it going.

there is a way to configure the network device outside the gui, drakconect, I think.....Again!

but from there you may get a better description.

also, if you use the "expert" install mode for mandrake, you have justa few more options, like dhcpd instead of dhcp-client, etc.

If you go to the 3com web site they may have a module you can add, as gd2shoe mentioned.

Hi,
My ethernet adapter is 3C940 10/100/1000 LAN
Thanks for reply.

That adapter SHOULD be detected and installed automatically.

However Mandrake 10.1 disables ACPI out of the box.

It does this because some (braindead?) motherboards hang up with ACPI enabled.

ACPI is needed to configure the resources for devices.

You may want to edit /etc/lilo.conf and change the line which reads "acpi=ht"

Just remove the words "acpi=ht" and nothing else.

Then run lilo (make sure you do this after making any changes to this file!) and then reboot.