Very Computer

Hi all,

I'm a semi-newbie to slackware (used to use it, but haven't touched it in
about 4 years) and I am having trouble getting my network device to work.

See, I bought this cheap Duron machine with the ethernet port integrated on
the motherboard.  So I have a couple of problems.

First, I don't know exactly what kind it is -- the drivers cd that came with
this machine has three different drivers for the onboard LAN -- Davicon
9102, RealTek 8139, and SIS 900.  So, I sent an email to the nice people who
sold me the machine to see if they can tell me which type of device it is,
but haven't heard yet.

Second, I've tried to load all three drivers as modules, and all of them
give me the same error:

Device or Resource Busy
Hint:  This error can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including
invalid IO or IRQ parameters.

I'm not passing any parameters when I try to load the module, and I simply
haven't got a clue how I would find out what IO address and IRQ my device is
on.

So, if anyone out there can tell me how to figure out which type of device I
have, or can explain what I'm doing wrong when I try to load the modules,
please, please send me an e-mail.

Regards,
Eric

Quote:> First, I don't know exactly what kind it is -- the drivers cd that came
with
> this machine has three different drivers for the onboard LAN -- Davicon
> 9102, RealTek 8139, and SIS 900.  So, I sent an email to the nice people
who
> sold me the machine to see if they can tell me which type of device it is,
> but haven't heard yet.

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your reply, but if you will read my original post you'll see
that I already have the driver.  I don't need to download it.  My problem is
that when I try to load the driver it gives me an error message.  (See
original post).

Thanks,
Eric

Simple and cheap solution.
I wonder if you are not better off if you go out and buy a new
PCI ethernet card, many cheapo comes with the realteak 8139 chipset
which works very well with Linux/BSD. I've seen rtl8139 cards
starting at 10$.

Simple more expensive solution.
If you really want the best ethernet card, get the Intel Ethernet
express Pro PCI. Works very well with Linux and is very reliable and
heavy duty.

Yeah, I've thought of that -- buying a regular PCI ethernet card is my
backup solution if I can't find a way to make this thing work.  I'm hoping I
can avoid having to do that though; it seems like such a waste.  Still, it
may come to that if I can't find an answer.

Like I always say, if you can't SOLVE the problem, just pay it to go away.
;)

Thanks,
Eric

--

Praise Slackware, our baud and saviour!
--

I'd like to thank everyone who has replied trying to help me with this
problem.  I appreciate every piece of advice.  However, the chain of replies
is getting kind of long and I thought it might be helpful to recap
everything I know so far, since I'm getting some suggestions that I've
already tried.  And so friends, here is the long tale of my woes.

The first thing that I was hoping for was that linux would just be able to
detect my on-board ethernet adapter.  However, when I installed slackware
7.1, and ran through netconfig, it was unable to detect any network card on
my machine, informing me that I should manually edit rc.modules later.

So, the next thing I did was to find out from th manufacturer what kind of
an adapter the onboard nic was.  They told me it is a Davicom 9102.  I
located the corrct driver module for it (dmfe.o) and tried to load it using
insmod.  The result looked like this:

    Using /lib/modules/2.2.16/net/dmfe.o
    /lib/modules/2.2.16/net/dmfe.o: init_module: Device or resource busy
    Hint:  This error can be caused by incorrect module parameters,
including invalid IO or IRQ parameters

I get the same result if I try to load it from the rc.modules file.

So, then I tried to compile this driver into my kernel.  I was able to
rebuild my kernel with no problems of course, but I am still not able to
detect the card with netconfig.

At this point, I decided that the onboard ethernet adapter must be the
trouble.   So I went out and bought a Linksys LNE100TX and put that into a
PCI slot, and disabled the onboard adapter through the bios.  I tried to
load the module for the new card which is the tulip driver, again using
insmod.  I got the same result as when I was trying the onboad nic (only
with tulip instead of dmfe in the message).  I tried running netconfig
again, and it still can't detect any network card.  (in my desparation, I
even tried to do the whole linux install over, but of course that didn't
change anything).

I have made sure that the card is not conflicting with anything else (the
bios shows a report of what devices are assigned to what IRQs at boot time)
and I have also gone into the bios to disable absolutely everything that I
don't need.  (the board also has onboard modem, soundcard, joystick port,
midi port, usb, serial, and parallel ports).

Still no luck.

I rebuilt the kernel again, this time to include the tulip driver, and still
no change.

I checked the output of dmesg, and there is no mention of the device there.
However, it does appear in the /proc/pci file, and in the output of lspci.
(I think it also shows up in the output of scanpci, but it is hard to tell
because everything in the list says "unknown device").

And that's everything I know.

Again, I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to respond to my plea
for help, and encourage everyone to keep responding, since I still haven't
made any progress!

In conclusion, Please, For the Love of Linus, Help Me.

Eric

<snip>

Quote:> So, the next thing I did was to find out from th manufacturer what kind of
> an adapter the onboard nic was.  They told me it is a Davicom 9102.  I
> located the corrct driver module for it (dmfe.o) and tried to load it using
> insmod.  The result looked like this:
>     Using /lib/modules/2.2.16/net/dmfe.o
>     /lib/modules/2.2.16/net/dmfe.o: init_module: Device or resource busy
>     Hint:  This error can be caused by incorrect module parameters,
> including invalid IO or IRQ parameters
> I get the same result if I try to load it from the rc.modules file.

Quote:> At this point, I decided that the onboard ethernet adapter must be the
> trouble.   So I went out and bought a Linksys LNE100TX and put that into a
> PCI slot, and disabled the onboard adapter through the bios.  I tried to
> load the module for the new card which is the tulip driver, again using
> insmod.  I got the same result as when I was trying the onboad nic (only
> with tulip instead of dmfe in the message).  I tried running netconfig

HTH

Allen
--
Some balls are held for charity and some for fancy dress.
But when they're held for pleasure, they're the balls that I like best.
My balls are always bouncing to the left and to the right.
It's my belief that my big balls should be held every night.
  6:00pm  up 2 days, 22:15, 10 users,  load average: 0.02, 0.02, 0.00

I have doubts about this though . . . there is still the question of why the
onboard Davicom 9102 was failing in the same kind of way, which leads me to
suspect some underlying problem.

Thanks for the idea. . . . I hope it works!

Eric

Hi!,

Quote:>> First, I don't know exactly what kind it is -- the drivers cd that came
>> with this machine has three different drivers for the onboard LAN --
>> Davicon 9102, RealTek 8139, and SIS 900.  So, I sent an email to the nice
>> people who sold me the machine to see if they can tell me which type of
>> device it is, but haven't heard yet.

> Addendum -- I now know that it is the Davicom 9102.

http://www.beowulf.org/listarchives/linux-tulip/1999/11/0033.html

See ya

Dean Thompson

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Have fun.

Stanislaw.
Slack user from Ulladulla.

I'll take linux newsgroup users over Microsoft tech support any time.  (But
then, I'd also take the Psychic Friends Network over Microsoft tech support
any time). ;)

Eric