Why can't I force the NIC driver to load???

["Robert W. Mudge Miller" <RMiller@UH.EDU>]

Dear Linux folk:

My NIC (a Winbond W89C940 type) is not detected at boot time because its
PCI ID is unknown (as predicted in the Ethernet-HOWTO, Sec 3.4). I am
running Caldera OpenLinux Lite V1.1, Linux kernel v2.0.29. I am following
the advice given in the HOWTO to bypass the PCI probing. I enter "linux
ether=11,0x6100,eth0" at the LILO boot prompt but still no NIC driver gets
loaded. A computer w/o a NIC is well nigh useless. Any thoughts, anyone?

Much thanks,

R.Miller

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>From the Ethernet-HOWTO:

3.4 Problems with NE1000 / NE2000 cards (and clones)

Problem: PCI NE2000 clone card is not detected at boot with v2.0.x.

Reason: The ne.c driver up to v2.0.30 only knows about the PCI ID number
of RealTek 8029 based clone cards.  Since then, Winbond and Compex have
also released PCI NE2000 clone cards, with different PCI ID numbers, and
hence the driver doesn't detect them. 

Solution: The easiest solution is to upgrade to a v2.0.31 version of the
linux kernel. It knows the ID numbers of about five different NE2000-PCI
chips, and will detect them automatically at boot or at module loading
time. 

Alternatively, after booting, you can get the I/O address (and interrupt) 
that the card will use from a ``cat /proc/pci''. Say for example it
reports IRQ 9 and I/O at 0xffe0, then at the LILO boot prompt you can add
ether=9,0xffe0,eth0 which will point the driver right at your card and
avoid the PCI based probing altogether.  (Future v2.1+ kernels will know
about the PCI IDs of Winbond and Compex NE2000 clones as well, so this
won't be necessary then.) 

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Robert W. Mudge Miller / (713) 743-8643 / (713) 743-4989(fax)
Instructional Technology
College of Education / University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204  / RMiller@uh.edu
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