Getting ISA PnP NIC to work in Slack

[Rob 'Feztaa' Park]

Ok, my ethernet adaptor is ISA PnP, and it is fully NE2000 compatible (When I was using Mandrake, it worked with the NE2000 drivers).

Now I'm trying to get it to work with slackware, but netconfig won't work. I'm looking in rc.modules, and I found this section:

#NE2000/NE1000 support (non PCI)
#/sbin/modprobe ne io=0x300
#/sbin/modprobe ne io=0x280
#/sbin/modprobe ne io=0x320
#/sbin/modprobe ne io=0x340
#/sbin/modprobe ne io=0x360

I know I'm supposed to uncomment one line depending on the I/O of my network card, but how do I know which one? Is there a way I can get my computer to tell me? Or do I just have to guess until it works?

[Rob 'Feztaa' Park]

Oh, and the Windows device manager tells me the following about the device:

Input/Output Range: 0240 - 025F
Interrupt Request: 09

I know that's the I/O and the IRQ, but how does the I/O number there correlate to the 0x___ number that modprobe wants?

[bdg1983]

Try

/sbin/modprobe ne io=0x240

[Rob 'Feztaa' Park]

It's not working.

I used netconfig, but it won't detect my ethernet card. It only detects my modem, which is not what I want...

ifconfig tells me that I have the device eth0, except that it's using my modem's I/O and IRQ. I think if I could just get slack to realize that eth0 is on IRQ 9 (not 3) and I/O 0x240 (not 0x220), it would work. How do I do that?

[bdg1983]

Find out exactly what resources are available in your system.

cat /proc/interrupts
cat proc/ioports

and then use the dos configuration utility that most if not all isa ethernet cards come with on the driver diskette or are downloadable. You can then change the irq and i/o to whatever is not being used.

If the card has jumpers, then do it that way.

[Rob 'Feztaa' Park]

Well, I used the windows device manager to print a summary of my computer. I have a complete printout that shows a system summary, IRQ summary, I/O port summary, upper memory usage summary, DMA usage summary, memory summary, and disk drive info.

What I don't understand is, Windows and Mandrake have no trouble with my NIC. What's up with slack? Am I going to have to physically remove my modem in order to get netconfig to properly detect my NIC?

[The Whizzard]

Using the device summary from windows is not always a good idea. IRQ, I/O, and DMA can change at each boot with PnP.
"cat /proc/interrupts
cat /proc/ioports" as suggested by mdwatts.

You also might want to
"ifconfig eth0 down"
then
"modprobe ne io=0x240"

[ 28 August 2001: Message edited by: The Whizzard ]

[bluesky]

I am using redhat so what I say here may not apply to slackware:

1. The other member was correct. The irq's and i/o's number in windows are usually not the same as in linux.

2. You should find out if your slackware has a built in module for your NIC or not.

3. If you use KDE, open the control center, click on information then on PCI. You will see something about your ethernet card's i/o and irq's number.

ISA NIC setting in linux is more tricky to setup than PCI NIC. so let us know your progress then may be we can help further.

[Rob 'Feztaa' Park]

Originally posted by bluesky:
<STRONG>I am using redhat so what I say here may not apply to slackware:

1. The other member was correct. The irq's and i/o's number in windows are usually not the same as in linux.</STRONG>

Damn, wasted 3 sheets of paper.

2. You should find out if your slackware has a built in module for your NIC or not.

I'm pretty sure it does. When I used Mandrake, I just told it to use the "NE2000 Non PCI" drivers and it worked out of the box. The comments in rc.modules (in slack) suggest that the drivers I'm trying to load are NE2000. I don't see why it wouldn't.

3. If you use KDE, open the control center, click on information then on PCI. You will see something about your ethernet card's i/o and irq's number.

I haven't bothered trying to configure X yet. Right now I'm just focusing on getting online, and getting my firewall functional.

ISA NIC setting in linux is more tricky to setup than PCI NIC. so let us know your progress then may be we can help further.

Yeah, netconfig claims that it can't probe my ISA NIC because it may get damaged or something. I'm on my mom's (windows only) computer atm, and I probably won't be getting home until tomorrow, I'll let you know what happens then.

FWIW, the IRQ and I/O that linux is trying to use for eth0 is consistent with what windows reports my modem to be using. I now know that windows and linux IRQs and I/Os may not be the same, but still... I suspect it's because I told netconfig I had an NIC, but all it could detect was my modem, and it's trying to merge them together into some perverted monster of a card, but it's obviously not working.

Thanks for the help guys!

[bdg1983]

Did you try the dos configuration utility I suggested. All non-jumpered isa cards should have this utility to allow you to change the irq and i/o.

And also disable PnP through the configuration utility.

[ 29 August 2001: Message edited by: mdwatts the 3rd ]

[Rob 'Feztaa' Park]

It did come with a driver disk, but there wasn't much of interest on it. It did have a linux installation help file though, but that suggested I recompile my kernel, and I thought that was overkill.

Anyway, I was fooling around with modprobe, and I *think* I got it to work simply by not including the io port at all (modprobe ne). As far as I can tell, I do have net access with slack, but I don't have access to a DNS server. I'm going to try to run netconfig again to configure my DNS server (I do know it's IP).

Anyway, thanks for the help. I'll let y'all know if I have any more trouble :)

[Rob 'Feztaa' Park]

Ok, still not working, and unfortunately it's time for me to give up.

I just got a job as a webmaster for an architecture firm, and I need a working webserver with php4 and mysql ASAP, and that means I need to fall back on mandrake for now.

I'll probably end up using mandrake until the end of the school year, I'll definitely need a lot of free time to get slack working for me.

Thanks anyway though, you guys are awesome :)

[bdg1983]

One last comment.

If it's a jumperless isa nic, then there has to be a way to change the irq and i/o. If the driver diskette does not contain a configuration utility to enable you to make these resource changes, then you could always check their website as the config utility could be available from there.

Congrats and good luck in your new job.