Re: 3com 3C905B

[Heikki Vatiainen <hessu@cs.tut.fi>]

> I apologize for asking the question when it's been addressed so often, but
> the answers I've found in the mail archives haven't been simplistic enough
> for me.
> 
> I have a hamm box freshly installed from CD. It has a 3COM 3c905B-TX NIC in
> it that doesn't seem to be recognized. I've about decided from the mail
> archives that the 2.034 kernel doesn't work with it.

I do not know about 2.0.34 but it works with 2.0.35. I have a 
3c905B and I have tested slink boot disks which came with
2.0.35. The current disk set, version 2.1.7, comes with 2.0.36,
but the earlier disks worked fine with kernel 2.0.35 and 3c905B
Ethernet card.

> I also have a Win95 box I can use to download packages/files.
> 
> I assume I need to download the 2.035 kernel and install it. Can anyone
> give me detail instructions about what to get, where to get it, and how to
> install it so my NIC will start working (assuming this is the problem)?

Do you mean instructions with compiling the kernel or getting 
the 3c905B working with 2.0.35 kernel? If you need help only 
with 3c905B I suggest you take a look at 
http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/vortex.html which is 
the home page for various 3c* drivers, including 3c905B.

>From the page you will find the latest driver, the one I have 
been using, and also precompiled binaries for 2.0.x kernels.

If you trust binaries compiled by a stranger, you can get the 
3c59x.o module I have been using from
ftp://sunsite.tut.fi/pub/Local/linux-atm/tmp/3c59x.o

MD5 checksum 56d45abc68e436e81cfab1637262b8d6  3c59x.o

The module was compiled from 3c59x.c, version 0.99H which is
the same version that you can find from the web page above.

The module may work with 2.0.34 but you have to use
"insmod -f 3c59x.o" since the module was compiled with 2.0.35
and you are using 2.0.34.

> TIA, Kent

No problem

// Heikki
-- 
Heikki Vatiainen                  * hessu@cs.tut.fi
Tampere University of Technology  * Tampere, Finland