Bug#352758: installation: "etch" installer fails to detect/configure PC card NIC
Package: installation
Severity: normal
I am trying to do a net install of "etch" - testing - on a Dell Inspiron
7500 via a 3Com Megahertz LAN+56K pc card combo connected to a Motorola
SBV5120 "surfboard" cable modem provided by Optimum Online. The
installer seems to start PC card services successfully but then it does
not recognize my Network Interface Card. As a result the network is not
configured making installation impossible.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: etch -testing
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.12
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
-- Info regarding the hardware obtained from a sarge system running in
another partition:
$ cardctl ident
Socket 0:
product info: "3Com", "Megahertz 3CCFEM556", "LAN + 56k Modem", ""
manfid: 0x0101, 0x0556
function: 0 (multifunction)
Socket 1:
product info: "KME ", "SCSI-CARD-001", "1"
manfid: 0x0032, 0x2604
$ lspci -n
0000:00:00.0 0600: 8086:7190 (rev 03)
0000:00:01.0 0604: 8086:7191 (rev 03)
0000:00:04.0 0607: 104c:ac1c (rev 01)
0000:00:04.1 0607: 104c:ac1c (rev 01)
0000:00:07.0 0680: 8086:7110 (rev 02)
0000:00:07.1 0101: 8086:7111 (rev 01)
0000:00:07.2 0c03: 8086:7112 (rev 01)
0000:00:07.3 0680: 8086:7113 (rev 02)
0000:00:08.0 0401: 125d:1978 (rev 10)
0000:01:00.0 0300: 1002:4c4d (rev 64)
$ lspci
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 03)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 03)
0000:00:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1225 (rev 01)
0000:00:04.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1225 (rev 01)
0000:00:07.0 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
0000:00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
0000:00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev01)
0000:00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
0000:00:08.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1978 Maestro 2E (rev 10)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (rev 64)
-- Additional remarks:
1. When the installer fails to recognize my NIC it displays a screen
asking me whether I plan to connect via the firewire interface. Probably
irrelevant since this laptop does not have any firewire port or capability
2. I was eventually able to workaround the problem after some
complicated acrobatics that more or less amounted to loading the
3c574_cs module manually.. backing out to the main menu upon reaching
the partitioner step, and running the "configure the network" step
manually. At this point I "executed a shell" and ifconfig revealed that
my NIC was correctly configured. I verified I was able to access inet
url's by wget-ing a web page.
3. The workaround is not satisfactory since after reboot when I
attempted to complete the installation (base-config program) eth0 was
not configured (although visible when I did an ifconfig -a) and
my attempts to bring it up manually ("ifup eth0" "ifupdown restart"
"pcmcia restart" "dhclient".. ) were unsuccessful.
4. On the other hand it would seem that the hardware/pcmcia/cardbus etc.
layer(s) are configured correctly since "cardctl info/ident/status"
displays the usual expected output.
5. As far as I can tell lsmod reveals that the correct modules for yenta-socket..
pcmcia.. and the NIC itself have been loaded.
6. I have absolutely no clue what is causing this - hotplug maybe..
since I did not have it with the 2.4 kernel.. but since I still have
this interrupted install available I could provide additional info
(logs, config files..) and run tests at short notice.
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