Please help a poor newbie withRedHat 7.0 NIC Problems

[blastfurnace]

RH7.0 has been nutin' but trouble for me so far...but I'm too stubborn to quit. I've never had any experience with Linux before now. (I've always been all Mac). I've heard about many problems with this distro, but rarely do I understand what people are talking about I've also searched the forums to no avail.
I have a AMD athalon 750MHz processor with a biostar motherboard, 120Mb RAM.
Anyway, here is my humble situation....
I installed RH from CD with no problems. It seems to recognize that I have a NIC card and asks me to set it up. I ask it to do so via DHCP. However, upon start-up when it tries to bring up the eth0 interface I get an "unable to resolve IP address information" error and the big ugly red "[failed]". IFCONFIG shows only "lo". If I try to netconfig, it will sometimes show the card, but it won't pass any traffic. Also, often times the card is inactive and I can't activate it. I've also tried the install without configuring via DHCP. At start-up I get no errors, but the card simply doesn't exist....
It is a Farallon card that supposedly needs the depca driver. It was my impression that this driver should be part of the installation disc, but I really don't know.
I had a friend who knows considerably more about Linux come over and take a look but he was also unable to make much progress. He told me that RH7.0 has some problems compiling the kernel.
I wish I had more info to give, but that is about all I know. I will be happy to supply any other info you might need.
I've also had weird CD problems, but that is for another day, I believe.

Please help us, Obi Wan, you are our only hope.

[mdwatts]

What ip address and netmask are you using? If your using DHCP, then your nic is looking for somewhere to get the ip.

Try this. Update /etc/resolv.conf

domain yourispdomainname
nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx # isp DNS 1
nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx # isp DNS 2

[0be1]

First of all have you checked with redhat to make sure that specific nic is supported under RH. Second have you read the network How-To. Third, I had problems compiling the kernel in 7.0 as well, but as soon as I went to kernel.org and downloaded the current kernel and header files and unzipped them to my machine I was able to compile without any errors on all aspects of my hardware just fine (I am still working on the PCMCIA on my laptop though). If you need any help compiling the kernel afterwards there is a very good article on this website, I just don't remember exactly where. If you still have problems, I suggest getting a network card that is supported for sure, they're cheap nowdays.

Hope this helps
0be1

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Linux, is there really any other OS worth using?

[blastfurnace]

I'm pretty sure my card is supported by RH. I know this seems like a stupid question, but if it wasn't supported, would it detect it at installation?
Anyhow, thanks for your suggestions. I'll try them out and report back!

[StanLin]

I believe I installed by card thru GNOME, using the setup, control centre or probably linux.conf but definitely thru GNOME.

[mattmorrow]

Here are some tips for setting up your NIC. They're in order from the obvious things to what you do when you're ready to scream:
1. Make sure you're using the right module.
Your distro vendor should have a hardware comaptability matrix.
If you can't it, do a web search to see what others have used.
You can always try a few. Remember that no all cards from the same manufacturer use the same module.
For example, the Netgear PCI card FA310tx uses tulip.o while their EA201c uses ne.o.
Initially, let the system try to determine the IRQ and base address. Ultimately, you may have to.
2. Test with a fully supported card first.
If you can beg, borrow or steal a fully supported card (like the 3Com 3c509) do it.
It should be automatically detected. Note all the configuration settings using things like:
linuxconf, ifconfig, dmesg output, contents of /etc/conf.modules (or modules.conf), contents of ifcfg-eth0 (script)
When you replace the card with your card (which is perhaps a lesser known brand), use those same settings.
You may have to program your board (see below).
For example, I used the settings from a borrowed 3Com 3c509c (IRQ 10, base address 0x0300) that was automatically detected.
I removed it and programmed my Netgear EA201c (NE2000 compatible) to use the same.
3. Program the card. If you just can't get it to detect your card, program the card using the manufacture's configuration utility, then use linuxconf (or some other
techniques) to configure the exact same settings.
The two most important settings are the IRQ and Base Address. Make a note of all the settings you use.
Usually, you boot from a DOS floppy, then replace it with the card manufactures diskette and run the config program.
Boot the system and run linuxconf to configure it identically. Finally, boot one more time.
I've had to do this even after the card was working for several weeks, but something changed that caused it to no longer work!
4. When all else fails, clean up old and perhaps erroneous entries in the following files and scripts:
a) /etc/conf.modules (or /etc/modules.conf)
This one prevented my card from working because linuxconf wasn't cleaning it up from previous attempts. It was all messed up.
You should only have one entry for your card. Something like "alias eth0 3c509".
Note that if you are specifying the IRQ and base address, they may also be on this line.
b) ifcfg-eth0 script (or whatever script your distro uses): Make a backup copy first.
Now strip out all the "IPX..." entries (the system will reinsert them).
You should only have something like:
DEVICE="eth0"
BOOTPROTO="none"
BROADCAST=[yours....]
IPADDR=[yours....]
NETMASK=[yours....]
NETWORK=[yours....]
ONBOOT="yes"

Final note: I wasn't able to get a card working - that had previously worked for several weeks - until I did the clean-up in step 4.
You might do "find / -name '*eth0*' -print" and review any other files/scripts that exist on your system.


[This message has been edited by mattmorrow (edited 03 January 2001).]

[blast-o-furnace]

I'm am postimg this off my Linux box!!! As pitiful as it is, I just took out that farallon and tried another cheap card. It workrd immediately. Ah, the wonders of technology!

Thanks for all of your help!!!

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"dumb all over, and a
little ugly on the
side"-Frank Z.