Need NIC HELP

[blizzardpimp]

Howdy all,

I just got a new toshiba satellite pro 1405-S151. I have set it up to dual boot between W2K and Mandrake 8.2. All appears to work fine except the ethernet card. Windows lists it as Intel Pro /100 M Mobile Connection. I have downloaded the eepro100 file and tried to follow the directions from Intel, however I receive a "kernel source not found" error when i issue the make install command.

I have been poking around looking for posts from people with similar problems. Somewhere i saw to "run modprobe -dv eepro100" however this also returned errors. I am pretty much a Linux virgin, however if i could find some straight forward instructions i am sure i could follow them. More importantly, I want to learn what i need to do and why i am doing it. Can anyone point me to a link?

TIA
-BlizzardPimp

[mdwatts]

Most distros should already include the eepro100 or e100 module.

Try

locate eepro100
and
locate e100

to see if either one are in your modules directory. /lib/modules/<kernel version>/...

Whenever you compile any hardware modules/drivers, you need to have the kernel source installed for whatever kernel version you are running.

If you have not upgraded the kernel either manually or from the Mandrake updates, you can install the kernel source rpm that is on your Mandrake installation cd(s).

uname -r will tell you the kernel version that you can use to check against the version on the install cd.

[rustskull]

wow. I wouldn't even know how to look for modules. debian install asks if you a floppy with extra modules on it and presents you with a list of the ones that are available. I ran into this in my first install ever and spent a couple hours going "why doesn't my eth work??" Popped the install back up (without initializing my partitions ;-) and went to the kernel config section (debian has a scrollable menu of all the install selections that is accessible at any point of the install) and saw the good ol eth pro 100 module, jacked it in, rebooted, and the card woke up and started config'ing itself. Since dhcp was available, I didn't have to do squat.

As a matter of fact, I basically booted this system up that I'm fixing up for the kids, the first thing it does is try to config the nic card (after the kernel modules) and since I have dhcp running at home, it was a breeze. I'm installing debian woody as we speak on my broadband line. It goes faster than the cdrom. ;-) There was actually a loadable module for this particular card, but wonders of wonders it wouldn't load so I just said the hell with it adn went forward...seems that the 3com cards are sort of wierd...it fired up on it's own and is working great. I spent 20 minutes trying to solve a problem that didn't exist ;-)

I guess I should have got a clue because the kernal module install was failing because the DEVICE WAS BUSY...didn't realize what the deal was until I went forward...it couldn't have been busy unless it was
1. broke
2. already running

also, the new woody install asks you if you want to load up the security update url into your apt-conf junk (sources.list file) so you get the latest patches automagically. So now it's not only installing the latest released stable software via ftp, it's patching all the packages as it goes with the latest security updates.

Suhwheeeeeet.

Next I'm gonna punch it up to go update everything to "testing" (3.2/sarge) which is the pool where stuff goes after all release critical bugs are fixed and it's been running for a while in "unstable" (always called sid). I may even go to unstable after a while...even on the kids system, because there's a lot of stuff in the debian jr. (a new meta package category) that is being added all the time, since it's new...and that stuff won't show up in stable until they freeze the testing pool and go into final bug squish (a couple week period, optimally, but usually longer) and get ready to archive current stable pool and transistion testing to stable.

People wonder why debian is one of the most solid (once config'd) distros out there...it's policy and standard driven, with a hell of a lot of great ideological and philosophical bent.

ummm...sorry...way more than was needed.

-rust

PS be careful if trying to patch up one distro's install with another's. If the kernel revs don't match you are in for a serious amount of hurl. From experience, I was using rescue/boot/root flops from a different kernel rev of the SAME DISTRO and it took me a while to get through it because pages of autobarf would come up on modprobe. I hacked around it a bit, but I would still get complaints and had to go through a few update stabs before I got it to quiet the hell down.

I think as long as the kernel revs match you might be able to be sneaky and crutch up your eth driver from a dif install, as long as you don't blow anything away, just head for the kernel mod section. No guarantees,though, but linux is a hell of a lot tougher/resilient than people think. Short of running out of disk space, you can ALWAYS rescue linux, one way or t' other.

Looking in the original distro is the best way to start, of course, as mdwatts already suggested. I bet it's there.

uname -a will give you all your critical system info...