Re: Linksys NIC

["Sean \\The RIMBoy\\" <sean@rimboy.com>]

On Sun, 4 Jan 2004, Ray Holtz wrote:

> I think I remember (unfortunatly) hearing that Linksys network cards are not
> Linux friendly (even though they share the first 3 letters). I've got an old
> 166 box that I would like to turn into a router for when I can finally
> afford broadband access.  I've got Redhat 9 running on it,  without X
> running, so it will just be old school command line.  The thing is it's got
> a linksys card, and it cannot get a DHCP address, and when i set a static
> address, it still cannot ping other PCs.

Couple of things to try.  

1.  Check the Hardware Compat Howto and maybe the Networking howto to see 
if that model is listed. 

2.  Google that card model and "linux" to see what turns up.  Chances are 
you'll find something that points you into a direction (what that is 
depends).

3.  Do you have the config disk?  If so, boot it or use a dos floppy to 
boot up the util.  Most modern ISA cards (there's an oxymoron) have a util 
to configure the card.  First and foremost, check the settings and make 
sure they're sane.  Since it's the only card in the system (from what I'm 
reading) then it should be IRQ 10 I/O 300 (0x300, etc).  If there's 
jumpers on the card make sure they're set to something sane.  

4.  If in the utility everything else looks sane then you might see if 
there's an NE2000 compatibility mode.  Most people cringe at that but it 
may be the only way to get the card to work (there are some performance 
limits on NE2000 cards but it stands to reason you'll never notice).  If 
that's the case then the driver you'll need to load under linux is "ne".  
Don't be fooled by ne2k, that's the PCI driver for PCI cards doing the 
NE2000 jig.  

5.  If you already have both cards in the system then you might have a IRQ 
conflict.  Ideally the utility on the driver disk is smart enough to 
detect both cards and will allow you to configure them accordingly (I've 
seen this on certain utils, even for the cheapy cards).  If that's the 
case then you'll need to make some choices.  IRQ 10 I/O 0x300 is generally 
the first one chosen.  If you have no sound card in the system then I'll 
usually choose IRQ 5 I/O 0x220.   Again, if you have no sound card.  
Another option will be IRQ 11 I/O 0x330.  

6.  Are you sure the cable is good?

7.  What is the output of:

/sbin/lsmod
/sbin/ifconfig
/bin/dmesg

Post those three to the list if the above does not pan out and we'll work 
from there.  

8.  You could have a bad card.  It happens.  I pulled by all accounts what 
should be a brand new AT-2000 card out the other night.  Could not get it 
to work.  After the diag util that comes with the card could not find the 
card it was replaced with another AT-2000 card with much better results.  
The dead AT-2000 card made it into File 13 from across the garage on the 
first try. ;)

Sean...

--
The punk rock will get you if the government don't get you first.
	--Old 97's
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