Matthias Krauss wrote:
Hi ! i'd like to gt rid of my suse box and migrade to debian, i've a 3com a realtec and a winbound which doesnt wanna load on debian (woddy 2418) except the 3com. lspci reports on suse+debain: 00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX [Fast Etherlink] (rev 74) 00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8029(AS) 00:0c.0 Ethernet controller: Winbond Electronics Corp W89C940 lsmod shows on suse 3c59x 24896 1 ne2k-pci 4800 2 (autoclean) 8390 5856 0 (autoclean) [ne2k-pci] so whats the best way to get the 8390 mod patched into the debian kernel ? thx alot Matthias
Matthias,I have used all of these cards here, although I have never done a "3-NIC" install. I think you should be able to get them all up with Debian. Here are some points for your consideration:
1. You can use the "modconf" program to insert modules into the kernel. You should have all the needed modules present on your system, so you will not have to re-compile anything...unless something doesn't work for some reason. Check out the net section of /lib/modules/ [kernel-version] and make sure all of listed modules are present on your system (3c58x, ne2k-pci, and 8390). Once installed with modconf, these remain over re-boots until you remove them.
2. An alternative to the "modconf" program is to list the needed modules in the /etc/modules file in the order you want them loaded. In your case, this might not be the best solution, since two of the cards (Realtek and Winbond) use the same driver module...see below. I have had problems with using similar cards (same driver) in older kernels, but it doesn't seem to be a problem in modern kernels used in Debian Woody....YMMV.
3. Needed driver modules: - The 3com card will require the "3c59x" module - The Realtek 8029A uses the "ne2k-pci" module - The Winbond W89c940 uses the "ne2k-pci" module.4. The 8390 module is "associated" with the ne2k-pci module and doesn't seem to be specific for any of your cards. When I load the ne2k-pci module here is automatically drags in the 8390. You can think of it as sort of a "driver's" driver...this is probably an over-simplification <g>.
5. Since the Realtek and Winbond cards use the same "driver" module, you will have to install 2 instances of the ne2k-pci module! This might cause some problems initially, but probably not IF you use the modconf program to install the modules. The cards CAN be distinguished by using the different IRQs they have. From inspection of the "lspci" command on your SuSE install, it appears that they are recognized as separate devices on the PCI bus (00:0a, 00:0b, 00:0c), so they shoud be assigned different IRQs by the kernel. You might want to check this out with a "lspci" command on the Debian install and make note of these IRQs.
6. When using the "modconf" program you will be presented a screen asking for the IO/IRQ of the particular card. Normally on PCI systems, you don't have to enter anything here as it will be autoprobed. If you run into difficulty with the second ne2k-pci card installing, you might try forcing it to look at a particular card by specifying its IRQ.
7. I would install the needed modules one-at-a time with modconf and check with "lsmod" that they were installed after each card. The modconf program will usually tell you if it thinks it succeeded or not, but it doesn't hurt to check. When done, the results of your "lspci" and "lsmod" commands on Debian should look like the ones you posted from SuSE.
8. Once you have all the modules installed and loading automatically at bootup, then configuring each card for network use is another problem. I have found the "etherconf" program to be quite useful here. It will ask a few questions via an ncurses-based GUI and will create the proper entries in /etc/network/interfaces for you. It saved me from several typos I had made by doing it by hand previously. In any case to get the cards running on your net you WILL have to configure them with the proper info (IP, Netmask, etc) in /etc/network/interfaces. Man Interfaces is you friend here.
HTH. Cheers, -Don Spoon-