Re: How to activate PCMCIA ethernet card in ThinkPad?
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Florian Kulzer wrote:
> Maybe there has been a regression or the card needs a driver that has
> been removed during the last cleanup of binary firmware blobs in the
> Debian kernel sources (which happened in version 2.6.24 or .25 IIRC).
>
> I would check out the output of "lspcmcia" and "lspci -knn" for the
> older kernel to find out which driver is used when it works. (AFAIK, if
> the pcmcia card is detected properly then the cardbus subsystem should
> create an entry in the PCI subsystem which triggers the loading of the
> appropriate module - at least, that's how things seems to work for my
> prism54-based pcmcia card.)
With the card in the Toshiba Tecra 8000 (P2 CPU; Etch, kernel
2.6.18-6-686) laptop, command "pccardctl -vvvv ls 1" shows two devices
in that socket. Device 0 is the LAN using driver "pcnet_cs". Device 1
is the 56k FAX/modem using driver "serial_cs".
With the Card in the R61 ThinkPad, the same command, but for socket 0
instead of 1, does not distinguish between the two devices on the same
card. It merely says "no driver". (It does however indicate the bridge
driver: "yenta_cardbus".)
I then ran modprobe to install the serial_cs and pcnet_cs modules and
confirmed their installation. I then ran "pccardctl -vvvv ls 1" again,
but with the same result: no differentiation of the two devices on the
card and still "no driver".
> The "eth%d" suggests to me that something really goes wrong with the
> discovery of the device; the "%d" placeholder should normally be
> replaced by the appropriate number (the next free one) by the kernel.
In view of the foregoing, where can I go from here, if anywhere? If
those two modules are not the right ones, which ones are? Surely there
must be people still using laptops with Etch or Lenny which require
external LAN cards.
As to why I may want to use this external LAN card rather than the
built-in one, I did a number of tests downloading the same web pages at
the same time to the ThinkPad and to my spouse's P4 desktop with Etch
and kernel 2.6.18. The latter does not have a built-in LAN card; so a
card in an PCI slot is necessary.
The pages downloaded to the P4 desktop at approximately twice the speed
as the downloads to the ThinkPad. I consequently want to try the
external LAN in the ThinkPad to see if it gave a faster response.
A previous experience comparing the spouse's P4 with a dual core desktop
with Etch and 2.6.26 produced the same result. I consequently disabled
the built-in LAN in the BIOS of that desktop with an external one, with
the same result -- connection speeds at least twice as fast. From these
experiences stems my suspicion of built-in LAN cards.
By the way, it is impossible in the ThinkPad to disable the built-in LAN
card in the BIOS. It should however not matter. Whichever LAN is
connected to the internet should be the one the ThinkPad will use if it
is configured for use.
Regards, Ken Heard, Toronto
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