PCMCIA ethernet card

[cus4fun]

My first of many posts I'm sure. I'm running Mandrake 9.0 on my Dell Inspiron 3000 and trying to use a Belkin PCMCIA ethernet card to connect to my router and the cable modem and cant seem to figure out how to load the driver from the cd to run the card. Any help?? Thanks, Chris

[nipperdj]

First rule: read the HOWTO's.
Second rule: read the previous posts.

When you have a specific problem that seems to defy the HOWTO's and other documentation then let us know. I personally could tell you everything you need to make this work, but I am looking for those who have more perplexing problems and who have done their homework.

If I'm convinced someone is genuinely stuck and has really tried to figure it out, I will gladly donate my time and knowledge.

Happy reading.

[LrnLnx]

" but I am looking for those who have more perplexing problems and who have done their homework"

then why are you wasting your valuable time with that reply..

you pompous a**...

cus4fun -

I'm working through a similar problem... I'll keep you posted on my success. I try to make a habit to post to "how I did it" when I solve a problem.
It is my understanding this forums function to help each other out, not a place for unhelpful braggarts

My experience is when someone says
" personally could tell you everything you need to make this work, but..."

means they don't have a clue...

[LrnLnx]

okay... cus4fun,

I don't know how much this will help you. I am running RH8.0 not Mandrake, but maybe this will give you some clues.

I watched my system boot and it appeared that pcmcia was starting.
A good place to start to get a more details on what your error may be (ask a more detailed question, you get a better answer)
is to look in /var/log/messages. I "rm" (remove) this file and reboot (to have a fresh file), there is usually a clue in there.

I took the error I found and googled on it (www.google.com/linux)You will find the better you get at searching here the more successful you will be with Linux.

I found from looking that my /etc/sysconfig/pcmica file may need to be edited. My pcmcia was set to "no" I changed that to yes then deleted my /var/log/messages file and rebooted....

Found new error in /var/log/messages about PCIC module not defined.. Googled.. found I should try PCIC=i82365 did and got a lot further. I can bring up eth0 now, temporally added:

ifconfig eth0 192.168.xxx.xxx
route add default gw 192.168.xxx.xxx

into my /etc/rc.d/rc.local file

and I'm good to go for now.. hope this helps..

don't be discouraged.... post your questions here there are lots of helpful people here.

[nipperdj]

I get paid to hold the hands of 50 or so users every day whether they read the manual or not. When I donate my time, I reasonably expect that the person requesting help has done a minmal amount of research and has done more than to find the answer than simply ask a question.

Chris, I want to help you... but you haven;t given enough information. There are 2 Belkin PCMCIA ethernet cards known to work ( Belkin F5D5020 & Belkin Belkin F5D6020 see http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/pcmcia.html) but you gave no indication that you had read that HOWTO.)

I just checked the Read Me file under the Linux Folder on a Belkin CD and the instructions seem quite thorough... but this is for a regular NIC and so the PCMCIA instructions may be more vague or they may not porvide linux drivers at all. This is some of the information I had hoped to see.

I was a little harsh, and so I apologize. I will watch for your posts and try to help you.

Lrn4lnx: Lighten up... if you doubt my knowledge, follow my posts. My points were accurate and consistent with forum etiquette. Your comments were not.

Happy learning.

[LrnLnx]

Your apology shows you’re reasonable...

As a director in a technology company, I manage people like you and understand the "hand holding” you have to do.
Too often I see this forum used by support "professionals" to say things they would never say in the workplace. I see too many "RTFM" posts here.

This was this users first post, and I felt the brashness he was met with was unwarranted. People need to learn how to help themselves too. I'd much prefer to see a post "Try to search with 'Belkin' on google, I did, and see a couple of articles that may get you further."

I don't really care about your knowledge. My post was in jest to show cus4fun that he's joined the right forum. More members are a good thing for this site. I was trying to remove the sting from having his hand slapped.

Thank you for your reply, and thank you for your posts when you help, not chastise.

[cus4fun]

Thanks for all the help. And I'm sorry that I haven't said anything before this, we were away from home for a bit.

I haven't had the opportunity to try the advice you'd given about booting and watching but I did read the doc's that came with my card, which is the 5020 model. they say to modify the /etc/pcmcia/config to include a reference to the belkin card but there are no drivers included. The docs say that Linux supports the card. I DO have an ethernet adapter listed now, jst have to figure out how it works.

As for being bashed for my post, I wasn't offended. You were a bit harsh, but in your defense I was awfully vague. I had guessed that this must be one of those simple fixes that everyone knows about but somehow slipped by me, I expected to be told to push the "connect to the network" button which I would find to be the largest thing on my desktop which of course would have been there all along but I would have failed to have seen it.

So, I'll try the re-booting thing, and I'll read the how-to you gave the link to in the second post and I'll let you know when I've run into the wall.

While I have you guys holding my hand, I have a couple other pesky problems. First, my computer displays these horrible and almost unreadable fonts, sort of like when windows boots in 'safe-mode'. I've tried resizing my screen, changing font size and type, I'm not sure what else to do. The driver is the correct one for my screen, it's the same one that windows used, the same resolution and refresh rate. I dont seem to have any flickering problems and aside from me being a dumb user there seem to be no 'real' problems, but I cant stand to look at my computer.

And last (so far), my computer seems VERY slow with this operating system. I have a box copy of Red Hat 7.2 that I've never tried, I installed the Mandrake because I read that it was very easy to install, and it was. Would the Red Hat 7.2 run any faster?

Well, thanks.
Chris

[LrnLnx]

I don't think that changing to RH will give you more speed.
You may be better off with a smaller window manager.

I've used Gnome and KDE but when they seemed slow, through this forum, trying Fluxbox was suggested. It definitely used less memory. And was easy to set up. I would suggest trying it. It has all the cool themes and all.

I have one old slow system too. A P166-MMX with 64megs RAM. I run Apache 2.0.44 and PHP4.3.1 on it. I administer it from command line only and have no X windows on it. It's plenty fast for that. Linux runs good on "older system" but if you want x windows (like for workstation use) more ram and more cpu is needed.

my 2 cents