[wplug] Adding a NIC

[Edward Walter]

Under normal circumstances, Redhat goes through a "new hardware" detection
phase at bootup.  It should prompt you about whether you want to configure
the nic.  Obviously, the best approach is to install a supported nic.  If
the nic is ISA and not PCI, you'll probably need to know the IRQ and IO
address ranges the card is configured to use.  A lot of the older
"unsupported" network cards can be forced into emulating an ne2000 adapter
which is supported.  Normally, there is some kind of utility, usually dos
based, provided by the manufacturer to set this up.  You should also be able
to use the configuration utility to set/query the IRQ and IO ranges.
-Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: wplug-admin at wplug.org [mailto:wplug-admin at wplug.org]On Behalf Of
Josue Batista
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 2:00 PM
To: wplug at wplug.org
Subject: Re: [wplug] Adding a NIC


Hi Larry,

What kind of NIC you have, ISA, PCI?  In most cases,
you do not have to reinstall Linux.

If you got one of those Plug and Play" NIC, then you
need to install and set the isapnptools package,
available at
http://www.roestock.demon.co.uk/isapnptools/.  That
package will probe and provide the settings to get
your PnP NIC up and running.

If you got a PCI card, then you do not need to be
concerned with I/O address and IRQ settings.  On PCI
cards, all those settings are dynamically defined at
boot time.  On the other hand, if you got an ISA NIC,
then those settings must be resolved.

Setting IRQ and I/O settings on an ISA Network Card.
===================================================
First check your Linux box for available IRQ and I/O
addresses.  If you have Linux up and running, most
Linux distributions store current system settings in
the ./proc directory:


/proc/interrupts, contains information about the IRQs
being used.

/proc/dma, shows DMA channels being used.

/proc/ioports, lists the I/O port address ranges being
used.

/proc/pci, shows information about PCI devices in your
system.

If you do a cat /proc/interrupts, that will show you
all the current IRQs and which ones are available for
you to use.  You can do the same with cat
/proc/ioports to determine what memory range is
available.

Once you have determine your potential candidates for
IRQ and I/O values use the NIC documentation to set
the jumpers in their proper location.

If your card is jumperless, then you need to create a
bootable DOS disk, and use the configuration program
for the card handy on a floppy.

Install the network card and boot your PC using the
DOS disk.  Run the configuration software for the card
and set the I/O address and IRQ settings.

Reboot your PC again under DOS and make sure the
settings were stored in the NIC non-volatile memory.

Hope that helps.

-- Josui



--- "Weber, Larry A" <laweber at switch.com> wrote:
> Awhile ago I installed Redhat 7.1 on and old 133 MHz
> PC.  Since I did not
> plan to connect this PC to a network, I did not
> configure the NIC card even
> though there was one installed.  I now need to
> interface to a Dallas TINI
> board and would like to get the NIC working.  Is
> this easy to do
> post-install or would I be better off reinstalling
> Linux?    Can anyone
> point me to instructions on how to do a NIC
> installation?
>
> Thanks
>
> -laweber
>
> _______________________________________________
> wplug mailing list
> wplug at wplug.org
> http://www.wplug.org/mailman/listinfo/wplug


=====
Josui R. Batista
American Business Consulting Inc.
Phone: 412-854-1315 / Fax: 412-854-3785
Website: http://www.abcsolutions.org
[Internet Distributed Applications]
[Legacy Integration to the Internet]
[Delphi XML Java PHP mySQL Oracle Apache Linux]

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail!
http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/
_______________________________________________
wplug mailing list
wplug at wplug.org
http://www.wplug.org/mailman/listinfo/wplug