Need a Network card driver

[mattrix]

I have just setup microcore 3.5.1, thank you for a bloat free distro.

My network card isn't detected (no entry in ifconfig, only lo).
How can I get it working?
It is an EISA P&P card based on a realtek 8019, & is novell compatible (NE series).

It has been suggested I may have to get files from another distro that does support it.
If I have to do this, what files do I need to get and how do I install them?

How do I make this persistent?

I'm a little confused about how persistence works. I assume its using some sort of unionfs.
But I'm not sure at what stage everything is done.

EG, If I wanted to have a directory /boot and mount my boot partition on it, would there be any point in modifying fstab, or would fstab have been processed before mydata.tgz is loaded? What would I have to put in filetool.lst to just create the /boot directory?

Similarly from what I can see the initrd is never removed from RAM (how big does it expand to?), so installing drivers would be done early in the process, before mydata.tgz has the chance to overlay the network driver files?

It appears mydata.tgz is loaded after initrd scripts have done all there stuff and just before startlocal.sh is executed and after this tce-load is used to load the "on boot" .tcz's.

thankyou for any suggestions

[Rich]

Hi mattrix
What does dmesg have to say about your card? If you decide to post your dmesg output please
attach it as a file.

[tinypoodle]

There is no overlay filesystem involved whatsoever.

Onboot extensions get mounted before mydata.gz is extracted.

Initial usage of tmpfs mounted over / is approxymately 17MB.

You could try to symlink an automatically created mount dir to a path of your convenience, e.g.

Code: [Select]

sudo ln -s /mnt/hda1 /mnt/boot

[mattrix]

Hey rich,
I am no dmesg expert. but heres what I saw,
the card is seen in P&PBIOS setup, but I cant see any resources allocated to it.
Let me know if you want the whole output.

[Rich]

Hi mattrix
Attach a copy and I'll take a look.

[mattrix]

That was easier said than done, (for a noob)
now if I can attach it, here it is.

[tinypoodle]

Have you made this card successfully work under any other Linux system?
If yes, how recent?

[mattrix]

Yes, I tried puppy recently. and it works with dos.

There is no overlay filesystem involved whatsoever.

OK, I'm MORE than a little confused.
I guess mydata can just get unpacked into the root file structure, overwriting anything thats already there.
But how do extensions work (especially if mounted)

[tinypoodle]

You should really read all documentation, starting from main site.
Hint: there is a nice graphic depiction of system architecture  

[Rich]

Hi mattrix
First try  ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.47  and see if the card comes up.

If that's an 8 bit card you may have a problem, but try  sudo modprobe ne.ko
You might also try playing with the bootcode

netdev=      [NET] Network devices parameters
      Format: <irq>,<io>,<mem_start>,<mem_end>,<name>
      Note that mem_start is often overloaded to mean
      something different and driver-specific.
      This usage is only documented in each driver source
      file if at all.

[tinypoodle]

You should feel lucky, many people are desperate to get an ethernet card work under DOS these days...   

You could check all parameters related to card used under Puppy, particularly driver.

[tinypoodle]

Card should be supported by ne driver in TC base.
For card specific instructions see:
http://www.faqs.org/docs/ethernet/Ethernet-HOWTO-4.html

[tinypoodle]

First try  ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.47  and see if the card comes up.

under the condition that router would be on subnet 192.168.1.0, otherwise has to be adapted accordingly   

[Rich]

He knew enough to use ifconfig so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

[mattrix]

He knew enough to use ifconfig so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Thanks for that.
 I know my way around ms systems, but specific linux is beyond me.

ifconfig eth0 = no such device
modprobe = device found and module installed
ifconfig eth0 = there, but didn't get an address from dhcp server