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3com network card, trouble w pcmcia-modules



Hi all,

Sorry for such a dump on my first post to the group :-) but I've spent almost 10 hours struggling with this card. I'm sure there are archived suggestions that I have not tried, but as you can probably gather from the length of this message I have already tried and researched a lot of things - so I'm hoping someone can take 3 minutes to point me in the right direction. Also, if anyone feels inclined to point me to an etiquette link it would be appreciated!

I'm trying to get a 3com pcmcia network card (3CXE589EC) working with Debian 3.0 r1. I installed fresh (my very first linux install & boots ever) from Cd's 1 and 2 I downloaded. Don't know if CD 2 was necessary. I did a vanilla install.

I'm using an Intel PII / 333MHz / 64MB / Compaq Armada 1750.

It is worth noting that inserting and ejecting the card makes no beeping sounds. (While I have not configured the sound card - a much lower priority than network - I do get system beeps if I, say, try to backspace a blank line in xterm.)

I'll start with what appears (to my ignr'nt eyes) to be the problem:

/lib/modules/2.2.20/pcmcia/   does not exist.

/etc/pcmcia/    exists but only contains one empty file, "cis"
/etc/pcmcia.conf    does not exist either.

This is probably because the pcmcia-modules package was not installed properly (see below)


Here's all the stuff I tried to no avail, copied from the terminal, though not in the same order. Most of these things I did several times at different points in my struggle...

# /etc/init.d/pcmcia restart
Shutting down PCMCIA services:.
Starting PCMCIA services: module directory /lib/modules/2.2.20/pcmcia not found.
#
(This same starting svcs message flashes by during bootup)

(( (And can someone explain to me why the above command works, but I can't run pcmcia from the init.d directory?)
   lakshmi:/etc/init.d# pcmcia restart
   bash: pcmcia: command not found
))


# cardctl ident
no pcmcia driver in /proc/devices
#

# modprobe 3c589_cs
modprobe: Can't locate module 3c589_cs
#

modconf
... doesn't list anything pcmcia.


# apt-get install pcmcia-modules
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Package pcmcia-modules has no available version, but exists in the database.
This typically means that the package was mentioned in a dependency and
never uploaded, has been obsoleted or is not available with the contents
of sources.list
E: Package pcmcia-modules has no installation candidate
#

# apt-get install pcmcia-cs
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Sorry, pcmcia-cs is already the newest version.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0  not upgraded.
#


Interestingly, during my very first linux bootup, it appears that it might have gotten some of this stuff right. But on the second and every subsequent bootup, it is definitely not right.

((Maybe it was a big mistake to follow the advice from the unofficial guide and the official manual, which both said to disable pcmcia stuff when prompted, because it's only necessary for an External PCMCIA CD-ROM drive that's being used for install. Oops??))


Here are the excerpts from /var/log/daemon.log :

First boot:

Feb  7 17:08:15 lakshmi cardmgr[176]: starting, version is 3.1.33
Feb  7 17:08:15 lakshmi cardmgr[176]: watching 2 sockets
Feb  7 17:08:15 lakshmi cardmgr[176]: socket 1: 3Com 589 Ethernet
Feb  7 17:08:15 lakshmi cardmgr[176]: executing: 'modprobe 3c589_cs'
Feb  7 17:08:16 lakshmi cardmgr[176]: executing: './network start eth0'
Feb  7 17:08:16 lakshmi cardmgr[176]: + Ignoring unknown interface eth0=eth0.

And later on... (Why are the time/dates are out of sequence??)

Feb  7 18:52:58 lakshmi modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module char-major-45
Feb  8 02:52:59 lakshmi cardmgr[176]: executing: './network check eth0'
Feb  8 02:52:59 lakshmi cardmgr[176]: + sh: ./network: No such file or directory
Feb  8 02:52:59 lakshmi cardmgr[176]: check cmd exited with status 127
Feb  8 02:52:59 lakshmi cardmgr[176]: exiting
Feb  7 18:53:03 lakshmi wwwoffled[9835]: Exit signalled. 

The above are the only cardmgr calls in my entire daemon.log, which has a good number of linux boots listed (I was going back and forth from windoze to linux so I could get internet access and then try this stuff!)


And here are excerpts from /var/log/messages (I edited some repetetive lines out where you see "Note from David"):

First boot:

Feb  7 17:08:14 lakshmi kernel: Adding Swap: 188992k swap-space (priority -1)
Feb  7 17:08:14 lakshmi kernel: Linux PCMCIA Card Services 3.1.33
Feb  7 17:08:14 lakshmi kernel:   kernel build: 2.2.20 #1 Sat Apr 20 11:45:28 EST 2002
Feb  7 17:08:14 lakshmi kernel:   options:  [pci] [cardbus] [apm]
Feb  7 17:08:14 lakshmi kernel: PCI routing table version 1.0 at 0xf09a0
Feb  7 17:08:14 lakshmi kernel:   00:11.0 -> irq 11
Feb  7 17:08:14 lakshmi kernel:   00:11.1 -> irq 11
Feb  7 17:08:14 lakshmi kernel: Intel ISA/PCI/CardBus PCIC probe:
Feb  7 17:08:14 lakshmi kernel:   TI 1225 rev 01 PCI-to-CardBus at slot 00:11, mem 0x7fffe000
Feb  7 17:08:14 lakshmi kernel:     host opts [0]: [ring] [pci + serial irq] [pci irq 11] [lat 66/176] [bus 2/2]
Feb  7 17:08:14 lakshmi kernel:     host opts [1]: [ring] [pci + serial irq] [pci irq 11] [lat 66/176] [bus 3/3]
Feb  7 17:08:15 lakshmi kernel:     ISA irqs (scanned) = 3,4,7,9,10,15 PCI status changes
Feb  7 17:08:15 lakshmi kernel: cs: memory probe 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff: clean.
Feb  7 17:08:16 lakshmi kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x100-0x107 0x220-0x22f 0x250-0x257 0x260-0x267 0x330-0x337 
0x378-0x37f 0x388-0x38f 0x4d0-0x4d7
Feb  7 17:08:16 lakshmi kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0230-0x024f: clean.
"Note from David": (The rest of the IO port probes were clean; there is one other exclusion 0xcf8-0xcff, the last one)
Feb  7 17:08:16 lakshmi kernel: eth0: 3Com 3c589, io 0x300, irq 3, hw_addr 00:00:86:36:0A:65
Feb  7 17:08:16 lakshmi kernel:   8K FIFO split 5:3 Rx:Tx, auto xcvr
Feb  8 01:28:14 lakshmi -- MARK --
Feb  8 01:48:14 lakshmi -- MARK --
Feb  7 18:00:30 lakshmi lpd[5946]: restarted


Second boot, and every subsequent boot:

Feb  7 20:12:27 lakshmi kernel: Adding Swap: 188992k swap-space (priority -1)
Feb  7 20:12:29 lakshmi diald[322]: start tap0: SIOCSIFMETRIC: Operation not supported 
Feb  7 20:12:29 lakshmi lpd[346]: restarted

note Linux PCMCIA Card Services are no longer being run directly after Adding Swap - in fact they were never run again, although the kde system info shows them, as seen below...

If it is of any consequence, here's what my PCI info displays for the PCMCIA slots (it obviously detected the slots correctly, as the model listing is identical to windoze model listing for the slots. (hard to resist making some comment about ease of install))


00:11.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1225 (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Compaq Computer Corporation: Unkonwn device b121
 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 66
 Memory at 7fffe000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
 Bus: primary=00, secondary-02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=0
 I/O window 0: 00000000-00000003
 I/O window 1: 00000000-00000003
 16-bit legacy interface ports at 03e1

And the other slot differs only in these respects:
 Memory at 7ffff000 (etc)
 Bus: primary=00, secondary=03, subordinate=03, sec-latency=0


And here are the contents of a couple other relevant files: (These are not terminal dumps, they are snapshots of the contents of the files

# /etc/network/interfaces -- configuration file for ifup(8), ifdown(8)
# The loopback interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

And  /etc/network/options :

ip_forward=no
spoofprotect=yes
syncookies=no


As advised in the PCMCIA-HOWTO, I would have liked to try the test_setup, test_network, and test_modem scripts, but I don't know where the "debug-tools subdirectory of the PCMCIA source tree" is. And of course I'm sure there's all kinds of stuff listed in the archive, but I need some human feedback at this point, I'm exhausted!


Thanks for your help!

-David



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