bootnet.img diskette(s)

by Bruce Roberts » Sat, 16 Feb 2002 14:40:08

Hi All,

I have an old PC (some 3.25Years old) and
it has an Adaptec Fast Ethernet card
(AHA6911A/TXC) PCI model.

This card has the combo 10/100UTP and Thinnet
connectors thereon.

Running RedHat 7.2 (enigma) I create the floppy
images for bootnet.img and drvnet.img onto
two floppies.. All fine.

Boot floppy and come along to loading the
network driver for the card seems to work
however once typing in the IP/Mask/GW/DNS
addresses (we dont run dchp) the link and 100
leds on card turn off (they come on once
driver loads and starts.

Of course once the leds go out the interface is
dead (via utp) and all is lost as I cannot
get a network connection..

Any clues out there..

I've tried various flavours of controllers
drivers that worked once you had a system
fully loaded, but from boot floppy all is
lost...

regards,

Engineering Computer Resources, + http://www.ecr.mu.oz.au/
C/o Faculty of Engineering, + Phone: + (61)(3) 8344-4242
University of Melbourne, 3010. AUSTRALIA + Fax: + (61)(3) 9347-2480

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1. bootnet.img: support for DEC21143 (tulip.o)

Hello,
I am trying to ftp install RedHat Intel 6.0 onto a Crystal CS500.
I am having all sorts of fun and games getting the NIC to work.
The system has an integrated card (CPU, keyboard, mouse, NIC etc all
on one card) and the ethernet subsystem is based on the DEC21143
chipset.

Install sees the NIC but when I try to connect to the network it
fails. I get errors on the hub (a nice flashing red LED). RedHat
support are on the case and I am also wading through the readmes, FAQs
and web pages but I have not found anything too helpful.

The Linux-Tulip information page,
http://www.bmen.tulane.edu/~siekas/tulip.html
is being updated and I've not found anything of direct relevance in
Donald Becker's page except for the diagnostic program which I will
try out soon.

I am doing an ftp install because although I have the RedHat Cds I
don't have a SCSI CD for the Crystal. A colleague originally
installed the system using an IDE CD (powered by *another* PC!) but
the install only worked when an IDE CD was present, removing it (or
not powering it) killed the network connection (?). Sometimes it
didn't work even with the CD attached.

Given that there is a brain-damaged installation on my system I have
tried using linuxconf to reinstall the tulip driver and I also tried
the de4x5 driver, neither worked.

I have also copied the entire CD set onto the hard disk but I don't
get the option to do a hard disk based install ... I suspect this is
because the cd image is on the system partition ?
I've also tried the expert install without any luck.

I think the problem may be either that the card is trying to run at
100Mb/s when it should be 10Mb/s or the driver embedded in bootnet and
the kernel is not suitable for my system.

So ...

1. has anyone ever successfully ftp installed on a system like mine
using a boot floppy and ftp ?

2. can anyone talk me through making a bootnet.img with the latest
tulip.o ?

If I have to I will recompile the kernel or drop in another NIC but I
would rather crack this problem and do a clean install from scratch so
I can use the integrated NIC and repartiton the hard disk.

If I have missed any information sources or if anyone needs more
information, please feel free to email me.

If anyone posts a reply I would be very graeful if you could also cc

Many thanks in advance for any advice or pointers!

Cheers,
Andy.

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