3Com pcmcia on Inspiron 5k

[ddm at pizzashack.org (Derek D. Martin)]

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On Tue, 31 Oct 2000, Jerry Feldman wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I am looking for some assistance getting my NIC to work on my laptop
> running Linux. Perhaps you can refer me to someone who may advise
> me.

The PCMCIA subsystem should figure out exactly which modules you need to
load.  I just had to figure this out when I re-installed my laptop
w/RH6.2.  The problem (on RedHat) is that if you don't install using the
PCMCIA boot disk, it won't find and configure your network card.  I don't
know how mandrake handles configuring PCMCIA devices when you're trying
to install on a laptop, but I suspect they also have a pcmcia boot image
on the cd. 

Here's the important part of your message:

> I also tried to use the network command to start up the nic
> [root at localhost pcmcia]# pwd 
> /etc/pcmcia 
> [root at localhost pcmcia]# ls 
> cis/ ftl* ide.opts network* serial* config ftl.opts memory* scsi*
> serial.opts config.opts ide* memory.opts scsi.opts shared 
> [root at localhost pcmcia]# . network start 3c_589.o 
> usage: ifup <device name>
> [root at localhost pcmcia]#   

Mandrake is based on Redhat, so I'm going to assume that their sysconfig
scripts are close enough that this should get you up and running.

The problem indicated above is that you're missing a file,
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0, which contains the
configuration information for your ethernet card.  Since it wasn't
detected at install time, you need to create it manually.

Use vi to edit that file, and put the following info in it:

  DEVICE=eth0
  BOOTPROTO=static
  IPADDR=<your IP address>
  BROADCAST=<broadcast address>
  NETMASK=<netmask>
  NETWORK=<network address>
  ONBOOT=yes


If you're going to use DHCP to configure this thing, you can change the
BOOTPROTO to dhcp or pump.  Depending on your dhcp server, one or the
other may not work.

I'm assuming you know how to calculate broadcast and network addresses
based on the IP address and subnet mask you chose, but if you don't, you
should see the ethernet howto and the Networking howto at
http://www.linuxdoc.org (look in the howto section -- there's an
alphabetical index there).

Once you have that information there, you should be able to do

  network start eth0

OR

  ifup eth0

and the PCMCIA subsystem should configure your card properly for you.

Good luck!

=8^)


- -- 
We sometimes catch a window, a glimpse of what's beyond
Was it just imagination stringing us along?
- ------------------------------------------------
Derek Martin          |   Unix/Linux geek
ddm at pizzashack.org    |   GnuPG Key ID: 81CFE75D
Retrieve my public key at http://pgp.mit.edu

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