ecco
11-17-2002, 07:25 PM
I can't stress enough (and this may seem like common sense, right) that when you are having network access problems (LAN, Internet, etc) you should definitely eliminate the possibility of hardware incomatibility!
I just spent a week trying to figure out why my connection to the LAN was instable, why my eth0 configuration was failing on every boot, etc. I was using a Netgear FA311 (rev A1) card with a Netgear 314 Cable/DSL router as DHCP server.
My workstation is dual-boot with WIN 2000 Advanced Server and RH Linux 7.1. When running WIN 2000 I have not had a single problem with the Netgear card. But with my RH install, I started having problems from day 1.
I did look at the RH HCL and noted that the Netgear FA311 card was listed but not certified (some kind of "some users report it working" entry vs. tested and certified).
So, since I am from the old-school of brute force method of getting things working I just went ahead with trying to get the card working in Linux. What a pain in the ***! I was able to get connected to the LAN and Web sporadically, but never consistently, and would carefully note all of my configuration details each time. But most off the time Linux simply didn't recognize the card, even if I manually forced all the settings that the day before worked! I tried everything imaginable, played with IRQ settings, etc. No Go!
Finally, today, I rummaged through my parts bin, found an old Intel EtherXpress Pro 10/100 card and decided to throw it in for kicks. BAM! Immediately on reboot Linux recognized the new hardware, let me configure it for DHCP, and I was off--- la lala, la la laaaaa!
Anyways, moral of the story- there's a reason things like the HCL exists, and even if you don't want to bother with it, try it. You'll like it!
Over and Out!
ecco
I just spent a week trying to figure out why my connection to the LAN was instable, why my eth0 configuration was failing on every boot, etc. I was using a Netgear FA311 (rev A1) card with a Netgear 314 Cable/DSL router as DHCP server.
My workstation is dual-boot with WIN 2000 Advanced Server and RH Linux 7.1. When running WIN 2000 I have not had a single problem with the Netgear card. But with my RH install, I started having problems from day 1.
I did look at the RH HCL and noted that the Netgear FA311 card was listed but not certified (some kind of "some users report it working" entry vs. tested and certified).
So, since I am from the old-school of brute force method of getting things working I just went ahead with trying to get the card working in Linux. What a pain in the ***! I was able to get connected to the LAN and Web sporadically, but never consistently, and would carefully note all of my configuration details each time. But most off the time Linux simply didn't recognize the card, even if I manually forced all the settings that the day before worked! I tried everything imaginable, played with IRQ settings, etc. No Go!
Finally, today, I rummaged through my parts bin, found an old Intel EtherXpress Pro 10/100 card and decided to throw it in for kicks. BAM! Immediately on reboot Linux recognized the new hardware, let me configure it for DHCP, and I was off--- la lala, la la laaaaa!
Anyways, moral of the story- there's a reason things like the HCL exists, and even if you don't want to bother with it, try it. You'll like it!
Over and Out!
ecco