How can I make my NIC card module automatically activate when I boot?

[cheapbastard]

What file do I have to modify to make this happen? Every time I reboot, I have to do the following:

insmod 3c509

and it's getting old.

[Mountainman]

compile it into your kernel. Or put a reference to it in one of your startup scripts.

[cheapbastard]

which startup file?

and I don't have the foggiest freakin idea how to compile my kernel... i just started into Linux about a week ago.

[§ilhouette]

Edit your /etc/conf.modules file to create an alias to the network card module. So, if your NIC module was 3c509, you would put this in your conf.modules file:

alias eth0 3c509

reboot and test it out.

[ 15 March 2001: Message edited by: §ilhouette ]

[Pras]

Or you can edit /etc/conf.modules (or is it modules.conf?) and add 'alias eth0 3c509' (or is it 'alias 3c509 eth0'?). Sorry about the uncertanties, I'm at work and I can't check my home machine right now (I'm setting up vnc tonight, in fact, so I can't run that excuse anymore).

I'm almost 100% sure that it's 'alias eth0 3c509'. The config files, you're just gonna have to look for that in the /etc/ folder. If you have only one NIC use eth0. Otherwise, you'd have to add the same line for each card, incrementing the number each time (ie. eth0, eth1, eth2, etc.)

[cheapbastard]

Alright... NEW PROBLEM

That entry already exists in /ect/modules.conf

When I reboot, I notice during the checklist:

BRINGING UP INTERFACE ETHO: [FAILED]

and a bunch of other stuff that I can't catch in time.

What else could be going on?

[ 15 March 2001: Message edited by: cheapbastard ]

[§ilhouette]

Originally posted by cheapbastard:
Alright... NEW PROBLEM

That entry already exists in /ect/modules.conf

When I reboot, I notice during the checklist:

BRINGING UP INTERFACE ETHO: [FAILED]

and a bunch of other stuff that I can't catch in time.

What else could be going on?

[ 15 March 2001: Message edited by: cheapbastard ]

Could it be possible that you're trying to load the wrong drivers for your NIC? When you manually type in 'insmod 3c905' do you get any errors?

[cheapbastard]

Nope, I can load the driver AFTER I boot up by typing insmod 3c509, I just can't get it to load during the boot process.

[§ilhouette]

Could you dump your startup log and post it? Maybe there's some dependency problems we need to address.

[cheapbastard]

I don't mean to sound ignorant (well, wait a minute... I AM IGNORANT), but how do you dump your start up log and post it? Are you refering to that checklist that happens during boot up, or is it a file somewhere?

Thanks for bearing with the dumb questions...

[Mountainman]

its dmesg in your /var/log i think.

[§ilhouette]

we are all ignorant in one way or another...but i say Ignorance is bliss and go on with it. :)

if you issue the dmesg command right after you boot up, it will grab the kernel syslog buffer and then we can take a look at all that stuff that goes scrolling by your screen.
dmesg > /tmp/boot.messages.txt Then take that file you just outputted (boot.messages.txt) and copy and paste it up here so we can take a looksee.

[cheapbastard]

Alright, now I really feel like a retard...

I am highlighting the text in emacs, selecting Edit Copy, then pressing Ctrl-v in this window and nothing is happening.

arg!

[cheapbastard]

Here we go... (used gnotepad instead)


Linux version 2.2.16-22 (root@porky.devel.redhat.com) (gcc version egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs-1.1.2 release)) #1 Tue Aug 22 16:49:06 EDT 2000
Detected 334095 kHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 666.83 BogoMIPS
Memory: 127820k/131072k available (1048k kernel code, 412k reserved, 1728k data, 64k init, 0k bigmem)
Dentry hash table entries: 262144 (order 9, 2048k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 131072 (order 7, 512k)
Page cache hash table entries: 32768 (order 5, 128k)
VFS: Diskquotas version dquot_6.4.0 initialized
CPU: Intel Celeron (Mendocino) stepping 00
Checking 386/387 coupling... OK, FPU using exception 16 error reporting.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.35a (19990819) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfdba1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0 for Linux NET4.0.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 131072 bhash 65536)
Linux IP multicast router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd v 1.5
Detected PS/2 Mouse Port.
Serial driver version 4.27 with MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.13)
Real Time Clock Driver v1.09
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
PIIX4: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 39
PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hda :DMA, hdb :pio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings: hdc :DMA, hdd :DMA
hda: FUJITSU MPC3032AT, ATA DISK drive
hdc: IDE4x4x32, ATAPI CDROM drive
hdd: ATAPI CDROM, ATAPI CDROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: FUJITSU MPC3032AT, 2014MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=1023/64/63
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MAX_REAL=12
raid5: measuring checksumming speed
raid5: MMX detected, trying high-speed MMX checksum routines
pII_mmx : 743.331 MB/sec
p5_mmx : 780.669 MB/sec
8regs : 574.167 MB/sec
32regs : 321.564 MB/sec
using fastest function: p5_mmx (780.669 MB/sec)
scsi : 0 hosts.
scsi : detected total.
md.c: sizeof(mdp_super_t) = 4096
Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2 < hda5 hda6 hda7 >
autodetecting RAID arrays
autorun ...
... autorun DONE.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 64k freed
Adding Swap: 133016k swap-space (priority -1)
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.232 $ time 16:53:56 Aug 22 2000
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
usb-uhci.c: Intel USB controller: setting latency timer to 0
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xdf00, IRQ 9
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
usb.c: USB new device connect, assigned device number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
Linux agpgart interface v0.99 (c) Jeff Hartmann
agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 96M
agpgart: Detected Intel 440LX chipset
agpgart: AGP aperture is 128M @ 0xd8000000

[ 15 March 2001: Message edited by: cheapbastard ]