PCMCIA ethernet card
 

Hi there,

I have a problems with my PCMCIA network card under Slackware, I have Microcom C.E. Travelcard, it's a 10MBit ethernet card, and it doesn't work, the module is inserted it's pcnet_cs and I have aliasin my modules.conf, I also have configured it through netconfig, and looked in the startup scripts but can't find out the problem.

Thank you for your help.

well, why don't you take the card out, then reinsert it.. then do:

"dmesg"

then copy the output of that and paste it to us so we can hopefully further help you.

Yea, dmesg is where you should start. Do a tail -f /var/log/messages and then open up another terminal and /etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia restart. Look at your messgaes in the first window. That should let you know whats happening. Personally, I don't like to manually remove the card in Linux. Doesn't matter if you do as long as hotplug is enabled. I normally cardctl eject and cardctl insert.

You also need ds, pcmcia_core and the one for your bridge controler. In my case it's texas instruments yenta_socket...... Doing a lspci will tell you what you have. It should be listed as Cardbus Bridge. I have 2 pcmcia slots so I have 2 listings in lspci.

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf needs to either have the DHCP[interface] variable set to yes or leave it blank and fill out your gateway, ipaddress and netmask. /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf should have atleast 3 variables set. Heres mine. Who ever made the original one needs to be shot with a large caliber pistol. :study: :scratch:

look on your routers web interface for the ESSID (lynksys, D-Link, Wireless, WAN) whatever your routers default is when you took it out of the box.... That should be changed to something unique anyway... MODE is fine on Managed for most setups.. KEY is for WEP encryption. That can also be enabled on your routers web interface. If WEP isn't enabled on your router, just leave it blank. Not a very good idea tho, but may help until you can get online... Sorry for being so basic If you already know this, but it may help someone else down the road...

The KEY variable needs to have a hex digit, not a 'passphrase'... I've seen people try this. The passphrase is just to generate a 13 or 26 digit hex number. The passphrase must also be either 5 or 10 characters long to respectively generate a 13 or 26 digit hex number.

Turning off MAC address filtering on your routers setup page is a good idea too tho that shouldn't be enabled by default...

I've found that having your ethernet module loaded can get pretty screwy. Both devices like to play musical chairs with each other some times.... Might be a good idea to blacklist your ethernet module in /etc/hotplug/blacklist or perhaps even fill out eth0 and eth1 in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf and then make sure /etc/modules.conf has 2 alias entries. One for each interface..... Blacklisting would probably be the better way to go. Renaming your ethernet module to have a .disabled extension on the end of it will result in it getting loaded anyway, so it's best to move it out of your modules directory entirely..... Once ifconfig consistently reports your pcmcia card as eth0, there shouldn't be any problems there. Then you only need to fill out eth0 in rc.inet1.conf and have one eth0 alias in modules.conf

cardctl along with it's various switches can be another helpfull command for information

Can't think of anything else without knowing what your logs are saying...