On Sun, Mar 18, 2001 at 11:20:01PM -0800, Benjamin Dubya Yu wrote:
> well I did a little reading, and some people are saying that one reason the
> that computer was unable to figure out my card was that I have to disable
> PnP OS in my BIOS...i did that, and have been screwing around in linux for
> a little while..but I still don't quite get how I am supposed to install
> the network card..
>
> They say that my network card is equivalent to the realtec 8139, so I
> should be using rtl8139.o, and thats in my /usr/src/linux/drivers/net/
> folder...but what are the commands that I have to use to make this thing
> come up and running?
First try: 'modprobe rtl8139' (must be root). This finds the driver module
rtl8139.o, probably located in /lib/modules/2.2.17/net, and loads it into the
running Linux kernel. If you need parameters you can put them after the name
of the driver when you run modprobe.
Other module commands are 'rmmod' (remove a module previously loaded) and
'lsmod' (show modules in running kernel). You must be root to use any of
these. There is more information in /usr/share/doc/modutils.
If you get a configuration that works you should create a file
'eth0' in /etc/modutils that contains a line like 'alias eth0 rtl8139
<params>' and also add the line 'eth0' to /etc/modules. Then run
update-modules. This will ensure that the driver is loaded at boot time an
always with the necesary parameters.
It is also possible to build the drivers into the kernel, rather that as
modules. That way they are always installed and cannot be removed. You may
find instructions that assume building modules into the kernel but you should
not need to do that.
I've cc'd this to vox-tech, our mailing list. I recommed subscribing,
there are a lot of knowledgeable people on it. There is subscription info on
http://lugod.org/.
--
Henry House
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