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Wolfman333

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Seting up a PCMCIA NIC

I have been going through this site trying to peice together answers to my problems and I just can't get it.

I've just installed Mandrake Linux 7.0 on my laptop.  I have a DlinkDFE-660 PCMCIA Card that lothar recognizes as a DECchip 21142/43.  I cant make my netconfig set up work, I suspect I don't have the right kernel module in the basic host info, but i'm not sure.  I need to know the config mode, weather the net device should be dummy0 or eth0 the correct kernel module (and how to set it up) and modifications I am supposed to make to /etc/config.modules or any other files.  (the config.module currently has a line:  "alias eth0 tulip"... is that right?)  As a new linux user I am very frustrated.. but not ready to give up yet.  any help you can provide would be appreciated.  thank you
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Wolfman333

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It may be the version of the PCMCIA modules that are on the system. The master site for the drivers is; ftp://sourceforge.org/pcmcia/. Before struggling any more, I'd suggest getting and installing the lastest version.

The DFE-660 is listed as using the tulip_cb PCMCIA driver, and it ought to work. You don't configure it by /etc/modules, it's all done by the PCMCIA stuff. There's an excellent howto on the PCMCIA drivers, at the source site and on any of the HowTo mirrors.
Trying doing an /sbin/lsmod to see if the module was actually loaded. If yes you should see something similar to:

tulip                  25252   1  (autoclean)

The "1" in that list specifies that it is being used(i.e. it was loaded) It is possible that you may have specified an incompatible module, then it won't load.
As far as how to set it up, jlevie is right, you Don't need to do it through config.module. I usually either use linuxconf or netcfg(don't know which is available on Suse) Makes things a lot easier.
jlevie & tibori,
I did what tibori said and tulip_cb is loaded but it doesn't say (autoclean).  I also noted that the module pcmcia_core is not loaded but it does have the comment [cb_enabler ds i82365]
could this be the problem.

I am using linuxconf to try this stuff, what about the net device, should that be set to dummy0 and do I have to make any kind of alias for it?
I just noticed on reboot that the dummy0 gives me a [FAILED] mesage on bootup.

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tibori

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If you do "ifconfig -a" does it show an eth0 device? And if it does, is the IP ( assuming you have a static IP set) correct? It eth0 is present and it's correctly configured and you still can't use the network (ping by IP address), then it becomes more likely that the PCMCIA drivers aren't working and you need a later version.
after you have checked that the pcmcia daemon is recognising your card and it is showing up as eth0, the rest of the setup should be pretty easy...

create a file in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts called ifcfg-eth0.  In it, place the following:

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=static
BROADCAST=192.168.242.255
IPADDR=192.168.242.3
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.242.0
ONBOOT=no

this is from one of my internal machines here, just modify to suit your needs.  The important part is setting ONBOOT to no.  If you don't do this, the startup scripts will try to configure eth0 before the pcmcia daemon has started.  Since eth0 doesn't exist yet, you'll get an annoying error.  When the pcmcia daemon starts, it will see the ethernet card, and automatically read this file to configure it.

the rest of your settings will need to be done in /etc/resolv.conf, and /etc/sysconfig/network.  In /etc/resolv.conf, it needs to have a seach line with the domain name you are in, and then a nameserver line for each nameserver you have.

example:
search abc.com
nameserver 12.34.56.78
nameserver 12.34.56.79

in /etc/sysconfig/network, you will need to set your gateway and hostname.... here is mine:
NETWORKING=yes
FORWARD_IPV4=false
HOSTNAME=linux_box
GATEWAY=192.168.242.1

that should help you get the rest of it going.  Hope it wasn't too much info.

good luck,
dennis
Well, yeah the rest will be easy if the PCMCIA drivers actually work. My problem has been that frequently the distributed versions on both Mandrake 7.0 & Redhat 6.1 don't (the eth0 device does exist, it just won't work) until I upgrade to 3.1.8 or better. But like most things, it strongly depends on what laptop and what PCMCIA card. The older laptops seem to work okay, but more modern ones are a lot more problematical.
yeah, on my laptop, it was a fairly easy installation.  I have a 486 with a NE2000 clone PCMCIA card.

Once I got through the driver disk request (which I couldn't find any documentation on), I was able to install over ftp using the pcmcia card.

This was with RedHat 6.1.  And except for the ONBOOT settings, everything was ready to go... i even downloaded the latest kernel source and pcmcia source and recompilled the kernel and pcmcia modules, and it is still working... so your idea about the older laptops working better might be pretty accurate.

another couple of things to check, from the pcmcia side is that when the card is in that it shows up in the list of pcmcia cards installed.  I can't remember the command you use to list what pcmcia cards are installed, but if you do a man -k pcmcia or look in the pcmcia docs, you should be able to find it... i almost think it was something like pcmdump, or dumpsomething... hopefully you'll be able to find it.

you also want to make sure that the pcmcia support modules are actually running... normally, i have a couple of modules installed (cat /proc/modules) that actually provide the support for the pcmcia bus... even when my network card isn't installed.

oh, btw, in your conf.modules, you don't need an alias eth0 tulip... the pcmcia daemon handles mapping the ethernet card to eth0 when you insert the card

good luck,
dennis
"cardctl status" will tell you about the PCMCIA sockets, "cardctl ident" will tell you what cards are found, and "cardctl config" will tell you what the IRQ & IOports are being used.

"lsmod" tells you what modules are loaded and there should be a module for the pcmcia_core, the pcmcia controller (likely to be i82365), and a couple of other PCMCIA modules. On my laptop I see:

tulip_cb               32420   2
cb_enabler              2088   2  [tulip_cb]
ds                      6088   2  [cb_enabler]
i82365                 21184   2
pcmcia_core            46688   0  [cb_enabler ds i82365]

loaded to drive an IBM EtherJet 10/100 CardBus card.
Wow,

A whole lot of good help.  thanks guys, I stumbled on a solution over the weekend based on some tibori's suggestions.  If I leave the card out until afterboot up the whole thing works fine.  I'm up and able to ping and logon from anywhere on my network, thanks for all your help.
There was a lot of help there, If I could have broken up the points I would have.  Tibori's comments seem to help the most.   Thanks alot guys.
Actually there is a way to split points.

For future reference... To split points you reduce the points for the existing question by some amount (what you want to give to the other party). Mark a comment (tibori's in this case) as the answer and post a new question for the balance of the points like "Points for jlevie"

Cheers...