Problems with Redhat 9

Hello,

I can't seem to use this card right, it fails to initialize during
startup, and anything else won't seem to work right. I'm a complete
newbie to Redhat Linux, despite my knowing a command or two, it
doesn't seem to be enough to solve this problem. I have tried using
the RTL8139.C driver from the D-Link site, my card is a DFE-530TX+,
but upon compiling, it gives me lots of errors. Please help me.

On Tue, 11 May 2004 18:42:01 -0700, El Baka wrote:
> I can't seem to use this card right, it fails to initialize during
> startup, and anything else won't seem to work right. I'm a complete

To get the technicalities out of the way: this is a hardware question,
not a networking one. Networking refers to the high-level details of
what the NIC does when it's functioning; hardware means getting the NIC
to function (to appear as a device on your physical Ethernet.) That
said, there are people here who can and will help you.

> newbie to Redhat Linux, despite my knowing a command or two, it
> doesn't seem to be enough to solve this problem. I have tried using

Red Hat / Fedora has a command or two which probe for NIC's and set up
networking. Oh, and that would be a Red Hat / Fedora question, which is
yet another technicality. In Slackware we have "netconfig", which
would easily be able to detect and configure ...

> the RTL8139.C driver from the D-Link site, my card is a DFE-530TX+,
> but upon compiling, it gives me lots of errors. Please help me.

.... your NIC. Red Hat (you did not mention the VERSION, which is very
significant because it would tell us what kernel version you're using;
if it's 9.0 the RTL 8139 problems would surely have been stabilised)
has a similar utility. Find it and run it.

What it will probably do is "modprobe 8139too". That loads the driver.
Then it runs an ifconfig command or DHCP client to configure the
networking.

Never never never NEVER EVER go to a manufacturer for a Linux driver.
A tiny minority of hardware manufacturers do participate in Linux
development, but most hardware support is provided by the kernel. This
is not Windows! Do not approach it as if it was.

("Never" is of course a bit too strong of a term. There are some times
when you would get a manufacturer's driver. The most common case these
days are the closed-source nVidia drivers.)

Read your Red Hat documentation and learn more about how to administer
your system in the correct way. Again, it is very different from the
way you do things in Windows. Good luck.
--
/dev/rob0 - preferred_email=i$((28*28+28))@softhome.net
or put "not-spam" or "/dev/rob0" in Subject header to reply

> ... your NIC. Red Hat (you did not mention the VERSION, which is very
> significant because it would tell us what kernel version you're using;
> if it's 9.0 the RTL 8139 problems would surely have been stabilised)
> has a similar utility. Find it and run it.

The topic says 9.. but then again the message didn't. My fault.

> What it will probably do is "modprobe 8139too". That loads the driver.
> Then it runs an ifconfig command or DHCP client to configure the
> networking.

Last time I had RH9 installed, I removed (modprobe -r 8139too.o) and
then tried to reload it (modprobe 8139too.o) .. Removing it seemed to
work fine but it wouldnt find it when I tried to reload it.. You said
just 8139too? Hmm.

> Read your Red Hat documentation and learn more about how to administer
> your system in the correct way. Again, it is very different from the
> way you do things in Windows. Good luck.

What Red Hat documentation?