Very Computer

Been there myself, as of about a week ago.  The
3c509 driver doesn't want the "io=", though
it will take the "irq=" specification.

Despite comments in various HOWTOs about the
fact that ISA NIC drivers generally don't probe
for NICs automatically, the 3c509b driver
does.  

Perhaps because the card comes in a PCI model
as well???  I dunno.

Anyway, in my system I have two 3c509b cards
configured at I/O address 300 and 310, IRQs
10 and 11 respectively.

My module configuration file simply contains:

alias eth0 3c509
alias eth1 3c509

and nothing else, and the kernal finds them both.

How do I know?  If it didn't, I wouldn't be typing
to you right now, since I'm typing this on a
Win98 box using ip masquerading to talk through
the Linux box over my DSL router.

Quote:

>when I boot up.

>if I run ifconfig I get the following

>eth0
>Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:10:5A:25:23:ED
>inet addr:204.210.62.215  Bcast:204.210.62.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
>UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
>          RX packets:38 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
>         TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
>         collisions:0
>          Interrupt:10 Base address:0x300

I betcha if you do a "cat /proc/ioports" or a "cat /proc/interrupts"
you won't see the 3c509b card, though :)

--

  Nature photos, on-line guides, at http://donb.photo.net

You're welcome.  It took me a few hours to figure out myself,
so was glad to pass along the info.

[snip]

Quote:>2. added the following to my /etc/conf.modules file
>alias eth0 3c509
>note: Tim Stark reccomended adding an options line to this file. My system
>didn't like that.

It would like the "irq=nn" part if you added it, but the 3c509b
driver doesn't accept the "io=0xnnn" option.

Quote:>3.typed insmod 3c509 (I don't know if this was neccessary, but it didn't hurt)

Not with my RH 5.2 release, at least.  The reference in the alias
seems to force loading, though as you point out it is harmless
to specify it.

Quote:>4. used netcfg to set up eth0 with DHCP and told it to activate on boot time.

And ... blinky-blinky-blinky, your ISP tells dhcp how to configure
your address, and you're off to the races!

--

  Nature photos, on-line guides, at http://donb.photo.net

You may have to run the config program from 3Com called 3c5x9cfg (should be
able to get this from 3Com's website or contact me and I'll email to you).
It runs under DOS and is used to change hardware settings such as base IO
address and Irq.  The funny thing about 3c509's is that under some OS's the
card could care less what Irq is specified by hardware, but the i/o address
must be set correctly (Win95/98).  In others, both the i/o address and irq
need to be conflict free and match the OS driver settings (WinNT and
presumablly Linux).

Hope this helps . . .

Jon