DIFFICULT to get help

[Ethan]

I have been trying to learn how to do something that is probably insanely simple, but somehow I just can not find an answer for it. I'm trying to get my laptop to recognize my PCMCIA Ethernet card. It's a very standard laptop and a very standard card. (A Toshiba 2545XCDT running Mandrake Linux 7.1 and a Farallon clone of a 3COM 3c589 card.)

Here's an example of the problem I keep running into: in another forum ronmon answered my question with "Basically, you have to make sure that the card controller itself is working and then load the module for your card aliased as eth0." I am thankful that ronmon posted that reply, and I very much appreciate the attempt to help, but it's difficult for me to use that information because I have no idea HOW to
"load a module." If I want to find out how to load a module, or what a module IS, what category of information does that fall into? Where would I look to find that out?

Here's another example: it was suggested that I look at the LDP HOWTOs. The PCMCIA HOWTO says "Before starting, you should think about whether you really need to compile the PCMCIA package yourself. All common Linux distributions come with pre-compiled driver packages." Great. It's this type of "help" that drives newbies insane. How do I "think about" this??? How do I find out if my distribution comes with the pre-compiled driver package I need? If it does, how do I use it? If you put an explanation for something IN TERMS OF THE THING YOU'RE EXPLAINING, then the explanation is INCOMPREHENSIBLE.


I suspect that the HOWTO is right and my laptop is probably inches away from being able to recognize the card, but all of the instructions and explanations and HOWTOs I've found assume that you ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING. I just need to understand how to make it happen in BEGINNER'S terms. For example, what is a module (in this context)? Is it the same thing as a driver? If I have the module I need on my computer how do I use it?


- E

[boblucci]

use the search and look for "pcmcia" you will have enough to keep you busy for a while!!

[JALU]

as root

insmod "module name for device, no quotes"

or you can recompile your kernel to add it that way. As far as it goes I would recommend recompiling because you don't want to have to insmod your driver every time you restart.

[Ethan]

> use the search and look for "pcmcia" you will have enough to keep you busy for a while!!

My goal is not to be kept busy for a while. I've already accomplished that. My goal is to get my laptop to recognize the card. Got any USEFULL information??

> as root

> insmod "module name for device, no quotes"

OK, thanks for replying, but this is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. What on Earth IS insmod? What output should I expect? If I don't KNOW the module name for the device (or what a module is, exactly), how can I use it as a command parameter?

- E

[mychl]

lsmod should list all of your modules that are installed, and insmod means install module.

I understand your frustration, if you care for some advice, learn the file structure, just putz around on the command line going into every directory you can and seeing what is in there. Once you get a feel for that, it will get easier to intuit where to go to get certain pieces of info. EX: goto, /usr/src and see whats there. Somewhere you will find a directory called modules... check it out to see what modules are there, maybe there will be one that looks like the name of your card.

Don't give up, the learning curve is exponential in a good way, the more you know, the more you know you don't know, but the easier it is to find out!

Good Luck
:cool:

[Ethan]

I tried ismod as root and got "command not found." Is that a basic command that should be on every Linux sytem? When you say "install a module" what does that mean, exactly? Again, is a module like a driver? Is the module on my hard drive in some non-installed form?

- E

[Ethan]

I used the find command and found this:

./lib/modules/2.2.15-4mdk/pcmcia/3c589_cs.o

then I tried to us insmod to install it. I still don't really know what than means, but I tried it anyway. I got a message saying "insmod: a module named 3c589_cs.o already exists." What does that mean?? It's already installed? Then why doesn't the machine detect the card? Any other way to get a machine to detect a card?

- E

[JALU]

try

ifconfig eth0 up

That should bring up your ethernet adapter, if it isn't up already. You may be having trouble with your IP configuration, and that might be why you can't connect. Check you ip address and you dns settings to make sure you have everything set-up right. If you have no idea what I am talking about then I suggest that you read some NHF's, man files, and do google searches for any term or idea you don't know about. Reading will get you through this. Type man insmod if you want to understand it better. It means insert module and all it does is insert a driver into the active kernel.

[bdg1983]

Just in case, here is the link for the pcmcia sources.


ftp://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/pub/pcmcia-cs/

You will also find readme's and a list of supported cards.

[solo]

Originally posted by Ethan:
<STRONG>I have been trying to learn how to do something that is probably insanely simple, but somehow I just can not find an answer for it. ...

Here's an example of the problem I keep running into: in another forum ronmon answered my question with "Basically, you have to make sure that the card controller itself is working and then load the module for your card aliased as eth0." I am thankful that ronmon posted that reply, and I very much appreciate the attempt to help, but it's difficult for me to use that information because I have no idea HOW to
"load a module." If I want to find out how to load a module, or what a module IS, what category of information does that fall into? Where would I look to find that out?

Here's another example: it was suggested that I look at the LDP HOWTOs. The PCMCIA HOWTO says "Before starting, you should think about whether you really need to compile the PCMCIA package yourself. All common Linux distributions come with pre-compiled driver packages." Great. It's this type of "help" that drives newbies insane. How do I "think about" this??? How do I find out if my distribution comes with the pre-compiled driver package I need? If it does, how do I use it? If you put an explanation for something IN TERMS OF THE THING YOU'RE EXPLAINING, then the explanation is INCOMPREHENSIBLE.


I suspect that the HOWTO is right and my laptop is probably inches away from being able to recognize the card, but all of the instructions and explanations and HOWTOs I've found assume that you ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING. I just need to understand how to make it happen in BEGINNER'S terms. For example, what is a module (in this context)? Is it the same thing as a driver? If I have the module I need on my computer how do I use it?


- E</STRONG>

Yes... I still get frustrated by this as well. I honestly can't understand how some folks can read some of these books cover to cover either... There's just so damn much information to get through to get to what you want to know. I guess, for now we just have to bear with it though. The forum search suggestion is not a bad idea... Once again TONS of information could come up; but at least you can easily click through the links, and search whole pages for keyword clues.

In reference to PCMCIA... when your system is booting, take a look to see if a message like "PCMCIA services starting" shows up, or not. If it doesn't, then none of your PC cards are likely to work. Looking back through your posts, I don't see what distribution you're using; but if you find that PCMCIA services are not loading at boot-up time; try fishing through a package manager, if you have one. This would be some sort of menu-driven program (either in the console, or in X) where you can set what you want loaded at boot-up. Unfortunately, this is mostly determined by what "modules" the kernel loads when it starts. BTW; a module can be "compiled" into the kernel (will start whenever the kernel starts), or can be loaded externally by the kernel during boot-up, depending on how you have things setup.

Hope this helps, and please hang in there ;). With the advent of the www, there are lots of ways to find information quickly.

[Ethan]

I tried ifconfig eth0 and got

bash: ifconfig: command not found

Any idea why that would happen and what I might be able to do about it?

- E

[Major Geek]

I've learned more about how things work
in Linux by switching to Slackware. The problem I had with GUI's is that once they
have a GUI interface to something, they often
take away the CLI, so you can't see what's
going on under the hood.

The book that comes with the Distro is an
Excellent introduction to Linux. It's also
online at Slackware Essentials (http://www.slackware.org/book/)

Take a look at it-- it might help!

Major Geek

[prince_kenshi]

You're logged on as root, right?

[Ethan]

OK, I switched to root and now ifconfig works. If I do

ifconfig -a

it returns information for eth0, eth1, and lo (loopback, I guess). I don't know why it says there are two ethernet interfaces.

If it returns a bunch of information under the heading "eth0," does that mean it's seeing the card?

I'll double check the networking parameters.

[prince_kenshi]

If it says eth0 at all, then it's seeing something at least. Since it said the module for your card was already loaded, then I'd say your card has been activated. As for eth1, you don't have two cards in your machine? That is rather interesting indeed.

[Ethan]

It's working!!! Thanks to everyone for your invaluable help. I used insmod (once I understood how) to install the module. I wouldn't have even known what a module is or how to find out it's name without the help I got here. Another issue was that the laptop has two slots on the side for PCMCIA cards. I had the card in the slot marked "1" but I was specifying "eth0" in my networking parameters. When I switched the card to the other slot it was suddenly able to communicate with the network. Maybe the presence of two slots explains why insmod -a returned two interfaces (in addition to the loopback). I guess I will have to look into compiling that module into the kernal so that I don't have to use insmod every time I restart. Thanks again for all the help. - E

[Ethan]

Oops -- I meant ifconfig -a returned two interfaces, etc...

[leperMessiah]

Ethan if you are still around thankyou for sticking with this - it has helped me immensely. With the information you uncovered I was able to discover that my Distro does not recognise my PCMCIA controller.

Thanks again,

And to all the w@nkers who say goto www.sourceforge or search the HowTo or try and Search shove it in your sphincter. How about you bring me your laptop with a faulty controller and I hand you a soldering iron and say go to it, how stupid are you its easy.

[slapNUT]

leperMessiah
And to all the w@nkers who say goto www.sourceforge or search the HowTo or try and Search shove it in your sphincter. How about you bring me your laptop with a faulty controller and I hand you a soldering iron and say go to it, how stupid are you its easy.
lol thats a hoot! You'll make lots of friends around here. But I agree. What if those "w@nkers" called Maytag and said my dryer wont dry, please help.

"Whats the problem, It's got a schematic that came with it and your local hardware store has heating elements! You want me to come out there and fix it for you or something... idiot!"

[mdwatts]

You got the leper part correct. I'll be staying away from you.

Another to add to my list.

[slapNUT]

mdwatts
Another to add to my list.
hey leper I told you. Now you're listed there along with me in watts's book! hehe.

[jason walding]

Help with the module problem would have been easy if everyone would stop assuming that that people know more than they do.
Throw a rope and outline a solution step by step. Send an email.
Outline a quick test for someone to get a feel of where their problem might be.
It took a long time on my own to learn to use insmod and lsmod and rmmod and all the rest. I can sympathise.

[JeffBarge]

So its wrong to expect people to try to figure something out themselves? Sure, I've had a few questions myself in the time I've been here, but posting here has always been one of the last options. If I'm unable to find something in the how-to's, then I'll check google...if that doesn't seem to help, then I'll search the forum...then I'll ask here...and all of that comes after applying what I've learned about the system from other problems I've had and trying random things...when someone mentions something to me such as a kernel module in response to a question, then rather than whining that I don't know what a module is or anything of that nature, I'm gonna hit the how-to's and google 'till I figure it out...I've learned more about the Linux OS from just putzing around the CLI, exploring the directory structure, and reading how-to's and other such documentation, than I have from having any question answered...I don't want to sound like I think the response to every question should be RTFM, but it reallly does help...Throwing a rope, sending an email, and other such things would not be necessary if people would be willing to spend a little bit more time reading...this operating system isn't going to hold your hand, and there are very few people here that are going to, either....
-jeffbarge

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by slapNUT

hey leper I told you. Now you're listed there along with me in watts's book! hehe.

I don't see you listed in my 'book'.

I could add you if you like. ;)