Re: Laptop Dell Latitude CPx 650 with Debian Potato 2.2

[Paul Schulz <pschulz@foursticks.com.au>]

Greetings,

   I'm a new debian user and I have some doubts about how to configure my
   new Laptop Dell Latitude CPx 650.

I'm quite happy with my machine. Did you get the on-site warrantee?
We bought 3, and one had problems with the PCMCIA on the motherboard.
After convincing myself (confidence problem) that it wasn't any linux
or BIOS problems.. I was able to convince DELL to come out and replace it.
[Having two identical machines, with one working, gave them no option :-)

Sound.. somebody else has talked about this..
Graphics.. similarly..
Xircom card.. (somethink I can talk about :-)

   And my worst problem how can I install the xircom drivers ?

The drivers are already in the kernel code.  They are already in the
debian distribution.

BUT.. There is is/was a bug in the tulip drivers that this card uses,
which (I think) stop them updating the ARP table.  The work around is
to put the card interface into promiscious mode (ifconfig eth0
promisc) whenever it is brought up.

This was discovered by finding that everything started to work when
tcpdump was started!

I understand that there is a fix for kernels 2.2.x (but can't confirm
this).  Kernels 2.4.x still have this problem.

There are also some issues when changing from 2.2.x -> 2.4.x kernels.
The kernel module has changed name (tulip_cb -> xircom_tulip_cb), and
the '/etc/pcmcia/config' file needs to be changed.  Also, the
structure of the module directories under 2.4.x has changed as well.

   Regards,

   Mario Augusto Rodrigues

Hope this helps,
Paul Schulz