[vox-tech] ethernet card setup

[Jeff Newmiller]

On Sun, 22 Jun 2003, ME wrote:

> David Siedband said:
> > I'm installing an ethernet card in machine running Debian (woody)
> >
> > here's the output from      #lspci -v
> >
> > 01:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Lite-on Communications Inc LNE100TX (rev20)
> >          Subsystem: Kingston Technologies: Unknown device f002
> >          Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 3
> >          I/O ports at d800 [size=256]
> >          Memory at fc9ec00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
> >          Expansion ROM at fc980000 [disabled] [size=256]
> >
> > (btw, none of the other devices listed had IRQ3)
> > This card uses the tulip.o driver, which I found in
> > /lib/modules/2.4.18-bf2.4/kernel/drivers/net/tulip/
>
> Does this box have any old fashioned serial ports? (You know, the 9-pin
> variety?) IRQ3 and IRQ4 are often reserved by for /dev/ttyS1 and
> /dev/ttyS0 respectively.
>
> Do you have serial module loaded?
> If so, cat /proc/interrupts and see if 3 and 4 are in use. The kernel only
> shows interrupts in .proc/interrupts for hardware that is recognizes. If
> you have serial ports, but serial support is not loaded, you wont see ther
> int in use.

This is a good suggestion. However, it is probably a good secondary
suggestion... see below.

Since IRQ3 is for the secondary serial port, you may very well be willing
to use the bios setup program to disable it if you need it.  Otherwise,
placing the card in a different slot may help the BIOS configure it with a
different interrupt.

> > from there I do
> > insmod tulip.o
> >
> > and it then shows up in lsmod
> > tulip          37184     0      (unused)
>
> It is better to use modprobe than it is to use insmod.
>
> modprobe may provide more help to you in the way of an error message.
>
> The whole point of depmod is for dependencies. insmod should be avoided
> and only considered when modprobe fails.

This is a bit formulaic... insmod is perfectly acceptable.  The fact that
insmod was successful means that he was able to address the
dependencies.

I do agree that modprobe is more _convenient_ in the long run, but there
is no reason to avoid insmod, unless you are being confused by module
dependencies.  Interestingly,  modprobe depends on modules.dep and on
additional hints you (or someone) puts into /etc/modules.conf, so you may
still have to address the dependency issues manually there before modprobe
will work properly.

> > I also added the following to the file in /etc/modutils/aliases (so it
> > goes into /etc/modules.conf)
> > alias        eth0                      tulip
> >
> > I do
> > depmod -a

The purpose of this command is to make modprobe review modules.dep and
hopefully work properly.

> > and try to initialize the eth0 adapter
> > ifup eth0
> > I get:
> > Ignoring unknown interface eth0=eth0
> >
> > Any suggestions?
>
> Yeah, you should be able to do
> # ifconfig eth0
> and see that work before trying # ifup eth0
> Of course, at this point, # ifconfig eth0 will fail too.

Of course?

What if /etc/network/interfaces is not configured properly?

The ifupdown system assumes that your modules are all loaded...  which
they appear to be. ifconfig will tell you which interfaces are available
to bring up (modules are loaded), and ifupdown will invoke (or perform the
equivalent operations) the ifconfig command according to how you have
configured the interfaces file. See "man interfaces" for more information.

[...]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Newmiller                        The     .....       .....  Go Live...
DCN:<jdnewmil@dcn.davis.ca.us>        Basics: ##.#.       ##.#.  Live Go...
                                      Live:   OO#.. Dead: OO#..  Playing
Research Engineer (Solar/Batteries            O.O#.       #.O#.  with
/Software/Embedded Controllers)               .OO#.       .OO#.  rocks...2k
---------------------------------------------------------------------------