Very Computer

I'd like to get Linux going on a laptop with ethernet. Are any PCMCIA
ethernet adapters supported, or is anyone working on support for any. I
haven't bought a card yet, but need to do so soon, so I want to get one
that works with Linux.

Thanks.

Quote:>I'd like to get Linux going on a laptop with ethernet. Are any PCMCIA
>ethernet adapters supported, or is anyone working on support for any. I
>haven't bought a card yet, but need to do so soon, so I want to get one
>that works with Linux.

There are several PCMCIA ethercard drivers floating around.  Most of them
work with only a single combination of PCMCIA socket chip and ethercard.
One of these may suit your immediate purposes, but you'll need to find out
the PCMCIA socket controller chip your laptop uses.  Typical ones are the
DataBook TCIC/2 and the Intel 82365.

Another approach that has reportedly been successful is using the MS-DOS
socket services to enable the PCMCIA socket, and then warm boot into linux.
Several of the PCMCIA ethercards are build around NE2000 clone chips, and
are detected by the normal NE2k device driver.  This won't work with all
PCMCIA ethercards.  The 3c589, for instance, is compatible with the 3c509 at
run-time but isn't detected by the 3c509 probe.

etc.) have been exchanging email about PCMCIA support.  The current idea
seems to be
    Write a user-level PCMCIA socket chip configuration program.

    Write a new class of network device drivers that can be configured after
    boot-time.  (Not all current drivers will fit this model, so the current
    network device drivers will remain unchanged.  Note that PCMCIA devices
    have two features that make this easier, they can't do DMA and their I/O
    address range can be changed.)

    Write a 'setserial'-like program to configure these new drivers.

--

IDA Supercomputing Research Center
17100 Science Drive, Bowie MD 20715                        301-805-7482