isa nic setup in suse 7.3

[brkptr]

hey all
i'm having trouble getting an ISA nic to work with linux. i have two different cards, and i'm having different problems with each. first - i'm running suse 7.3 and PNP is turned off in the BIOS. i have a windows xp box that has 2 nics, one is connected to a cable modem and the other is connected to my linux box. i'd like to be able to share files between win and lin, but my main interest is internet access for the linux box through the win one. i think i have all the ip addresses set up correctly for networking, but i haven't been able to get the nic in the linux box working right. before i put linux on there, it was a windows box and i had a network connection between those two win boxes, so i'm fairly certain it's not a hardware issue.

ok so the card i was trying to use before was a 3Com 3c509. i could get the module for that loaded and ifconfig would recognize it, but i wasn't able to ping anything. the utilities i d/l'd from www.scyld.com told me i had all the io and irq setttings wrong, but when i changed them to what it suggested, the card wouldn't load at all. windows never saw the linux box at all when i was using that card. i have an old thread on this site that shows me trying to set up red hat 8.0 with that card: http://www.linuxnewbie.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61956

so now i've gotten another nic to try out. unfortunately, it's another crappy isa one, but i think i should still be able to get it working. it's a DLink DE-220P. doing a bit of searching on here and www.tldp.org, it looks like it should be using the ne.c module. i try to load that using the suse network card setup and i get an error that says "network device eth0 not running" or somehting like that. i tried doing modprobe ne to load it manually (?) and i got other errors, which i'll copy in below. ifconfig only lists lo, while ifconfig -a lists lo and sit0. if i cat /proc/interrupts and /proc/ioports, there's no mention of the dlink card.

so it sounds like the dlink card isn't working at all... except there's a few things that don't make sense. first of all, when i start up the linux box, the win box tells me that a network connection has been reestablished, ie, it sees the linux nic. however, i can't ping it from windows at all. but with the 3com, windows never saw it at all, and always said that the connection was down. so how can the connection be up if linux doesn't even think it has a card configured?
the other weird thing is that if i check out the hardware profile in the suse control center, i can find a listing for the dlink card. under "net work devices" it lists "D-Link DE-220P PnP ISA Card" which is the exact card in there. under resourses, it says that it's using io 0x240 and irq 5. but how can it find all that info, but have no listings in /proc/[interrupts/ioports]?

so that's the story so far. i'm still essentially a newbie here, so please let me know if i'm missing something completely obvious (or not). i'll post some outputs for a few commands here that might give more helpful info.
thanks in advance for the help!

ifconfig -a

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:375 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:375 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:17928 (17.5 Kb) TX bytes:17928 (17.5 Kb)

sit0 Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4
NOARP MTU:1480 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)


linux:/etc # cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 40257115 XT-PIC timer
1: 1027 XT-PIC keyboard
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
8: 2 XT-PIC rtc
9: 10110 XT-PIC aic7xxx, usb-uhci, Ensoniq AudioPCI
12: 193823 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse
14: 450880 XT-PIC ide0
15: 596242 XT-PIC ide1
NMI: 0
LOC: 40259144
ERR: 0
MIS: 0

linux:/etc # cat /proc/ioports
0000-001f : dma1
0020-003f : pic1
0040-005f : timer
0060-006f : keyboard
0070-007f : rtc
0080-008f : dma page reg
00a0-00bf : pic2
00c0-00df : dma2
00f0-00ff : fpu
0170-0177 : ide1
01f0-01f7 : ide0
0213-0213 : isapnp read
02f8-02ff : serial(auto)
0376-0376 : ide1
0378-037a : parport0
03c0-03df : vga+
03e8-03ef : serial(auto)
03f6-03f6 : ide0
03f8-03ff : serial(auto)
0a79-0a79 : isapnp write
0cf8-0cff : PCI conf1
1000-10ff : PCI device 9004:5078
1000-10ff : aic7xxx
1400-143f : PCI device 1274:5000
1400-143f : Ensoniq AudioPCI
1440-145f : PCI device 8086:7112
1440-145f : usb-uhci
1460-146f : PCI device 8086:7111
1460-1467 : ide0
1468-146f : ide1
7000-701f : PCI device 8086:7113
8000-803f : PCI device 8086:7113


linux:/etc # modprobe ne
Note: /etc/modules.conf is more recent than /lib/modules/2.4.10-4GB/modules.dep
/lib/modules/2.4.10-4GB/kernel/drivers/net/ne.o: init_module: No such device or address
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters
/lib/modules/2.4.10-4GB/kernel/drivers/net/ne.o: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.10-4GB/kernel/drivers/net/ne.o failed
/lib/modules/2.4.10-4GB/kernel/drivers/net/ne.o: insmod ne failed

[jumpedintothefire]

I think the problem might be the way /etc/modules/conf is set up....

from your other post:
---
so i killed the line i added to modules.conf (which was (minus quotes): " options eth0 irq=10 io=0x300").
---
(the irq and io are for demo only, yours may be different)

should of looked like,
for the 3com card:

alias eth0 3c509
options 3c509 io=0x300 irq=10

for a ne card:

alias eth0 ne
options ne io=0x300 irq=10


The option line is for the module not the interface.

Grab the dos config program from dlink, boot dos and use the utility to check or change what the card is set to. Make sure it is in "jumperless" mode, then check/edit the /etc/modules.conf file to match what the nic is set to. I use ne cards all the time and that is all I do to set them up....

What is in the /etc/module.conf file now??
I'll bet that it is the same as what you saw under resources, which may be incorrect... Check it with the dos config program...

[brkptr]

hey JITF thanks for helping me out (again)...

ok so i found that dlink utility you mentioned... i ran it under dos and turned off the PnP. it said that my current settings were io=0x240 irq=5, but when i took off PnP, it defaulted to irq=11 for a new setting... is that just a preset default, or is that what i should have changed it to?
anyway, i left it at 5, and booted back into linux. i changed the line in /etc/modules.conf to look like:

alias eth0 ne
options ne io=0x240 irq=5

and then rebooted... i'm still seeing those same errors though when i boot up (the ones from modprobe that i posted earlier). the other thing that seems weird is that in the xconsole window (showing system errors/messages?) there's a couple errors pertaining to this, including one that says "ne.c: No NE*000 card found at i/o = 0x300". why would it still be looking there? or should i use the dos util to set the card to io 300? or am i just missing the next step to getting the card configured and up?

[jumpedintothefire]

>why would it still be looking there?

Just a thought, maybe the module is compiled into the kernel.... That might explain the message... can you post the message?? Try setting the nic to 300 and see what happends.... Did you do a kernel recompile??

[brkptr]

ok here's the console log message:

Console log for linux
Nov 30 16:12:51 linux kernel: ip_tables: (c)2000 Netfilter core team
Nov 30 16:12:51 linux kernel: ip_conntrack (1536 buckets, 12288 max)
Nov 30 16:12:51 linux kernel: ne.c: No NE*000 card found at i/o = 0x300
Nov 30 16:12:51 linux last message repeated 5 times
Nov 30 16:17:47 linux kernel: ne.c: No NE*000 card found at i/o = 0x300
Nov 30 16:17:47 linux insmod: /lib/modules/2.4.10-4GB/kernel/drivers/net/ne.o: init_module: No such device or address
Nov 30 16:17:47 linux insmod: /lib/modules/2.4.10-4GB/kernel/drivers/net/ne.o: insmod eth0 failed
Nov 30 16:17:47 linux dhcpcd[1720]: dhcpStart: ioctl SIOCGIFHWADDR: No such device


i haven't done a kernel recompile... that's not something i know how to do i guess. is that something that needs to be done before the changes to the module will be recognized?

[jumpedintothefire]

What does locate ne.o give you? If you get no response then the module is compiled into the kernel or not at all...

Did you try setting the nic to 300??

[brkptr]

locate ne.o gives me:

/lib/modules/2.4.10-4GB/kernel/drivers/net/ne.o

and 3 or 4 other thing that just happen to have 'ne.o' in them.

i'll try now to set the nice to 300 with the dos util and repost in a few min...

[brkptr]

a-ha! that was it. i set the nic to 300 in dos, and now it seems to be set up ok. well, it's not configured right i guess, but ifconfig reports it at least, so that's a start. now i think i need to figure out routing and gateways and all that to look at the internet through the winxp box. but getting it to recognize the card has been a roadblock for a while. i'll go fight with the configuration, and probably post a new thread on that when i run into trouble.

thanks again, jumped!