Linux under the Novice installation network card

This article mainly faces the new novice, does not have any high difficulty question discussion, including the double network card, the normal compilation driver also cannot use the strange network card and so on. The main purpose of this article is to tell the new novice, Linux under the network card is how to drive. This article does not discuss installing Linux, Assume that the user has successfully Linux, and so on driver network card.

The first step--Don't ask Linux can install XXX card? Such a problem, Linux is an open system, with the help of countless experts on the network, almost all hardware can find support.

First of all, we need to point out that Linux network card support is often only on the chip, so for some not very well-known network card, often need to know its chip model to configure Linux. For example, my Accton network card, there is no Linux driver, but because it is NE2000 compatible, So you can use it as a NE2000 in Linux. So when you have a network card can not be used, before looking for Linux driver must find out what the network card with the chip, and who compatible, such as 3c509,ne2000, EtherExpress and so on. Such models are generally on the network card on the largest chip on the printed, copy down is the.

Perhaps the most common use of the network card is probably the best Ne2000 compatible card, I use it as an example. Note that many inexpensive cards are actually NE2000 compatible.

For NE2000 card, the first thing to do is to set the NIC to jumpless mode. Many of the current network cards are by default PNP mode, which can actually reduce the number of problems under 95, but Linux does not support, So Linux must be jumpless mode. In general, all programs have the NIC set to Jumpless. Of course, if it is old card, it is not PNP, do not care about this. Note that the main Isa NE2000, the NE2000 for PCI, requires additional settings.

Down is to figure out the IO address and IRQ of the NIC. This is the two very important network card driver parameters. This is the simplest way to use the network card Setup program, after setting the jumpless must have a place to soft set IO and IRQ. Old card jumper, . Another way is if the NIC can work under 95 or NT, go to the Control Panel at 95 and look at the card's properities, check IO and IRQ.

OK, until now, you know your card is NE2000 compatible, know it is in jumpless mode, know the IO address and IRQ, you can install.

The point that a Linux system differs from 95 of these systems is that it runs on the kernel, the so-called kernel, is the core of the system to isolate the most important parts of the program, will be a variety of drivers, memory control and other parts of the together. In 95 different, Linux kernel is open, often updated, so that no need to update the entire system, Users only need to download the latest kernel of the original program to compile, you can get a support for more hardware, more file systems, a more secure system. So it should be noted that Linux driver are rarely installed like 95. Most of the driver under Linux are published in the form of a C program, or in the kernel, or require the user to modify the kernel code themselves. In short, let the driver run, You will have to reconfigure the build kernel. How to operate the Linux kernel is a very important part of learning Linux. The novice in Linux would be better off doing some work here to figure it out. About the core issues suggest looking at the Linux how to document kernel.

Anyway, Linux has been installed, then what is the kernel? The default Linux kernel is from the installation disk. The kernel typically includes drivers for most hardware, such as Ne2000 cards. So there is no need to recompile the kernel, Perhaps the existing kernel can be driven. So the next step is to plug the NIC into the computer and see if Linux can find it. This can be seen from the Linux splash screen if you find a line like this:

eth0:ne2000 card found at 0x300 using IRQ 05

That means Linux found the NE2000 card, in Io, IRQ 05 where.

If Linux does not find your network card, but you confirm your network card model and parameters, such as My network card is NE2000 compatible, IO 0x300, IRQ 05. Then you can modify the Linux boot file to search for this device specifically. This file is in/etc/rc.d/. Rc.modules for the NE2000, is this:

#/sbin/modprobe NE io=0x300 # NE2000 at 0x300

Remove the front # number before starting the machine.

In addition, the file can also be found in other series of network adapters such as the 3C series of Autoprobe.

OK, it doesn't appear on the boot screen now.

eth0:ne2000 card found at 0x300 using IRQ 05

Such good news, then you have to compile the kernel.

Before compiling the kernel, it is necessary to understand the chip number of the network card. For example, I have a SMC card, but I can not find the word SMC in the Linux kernel configuration menu, Linux is not Win95, There are so long a series of manufacturers and so on. I found the word digital 21140-ae on this SMC card, so I knew that the card used a Dec 21140-ae chip, so I looked for it and found the driver.

Know the chip type, or compatible type (such as ne2000) can start to compile the kernel. Specific to the different systems of the kernel compilation recommended first look at the kernel compiled articles, here is not much to introduce.

Enter/usr/src/linux

Run make Menuconfig into the menu configuration kernel. Find Network Device Support. Choose Ethernet, then select the corresponding chip number. If you are the NE2000 of the ISA line, select Other ISA cards, and then select NE2000 /ne1000 ISA Support. If it is a PCI NIC, choose PCI Ethernet adapters. Note that PCI cards may not be able to drive this way, a lot of it is not, you have to find another driver. Like Intel PCI EtherExpress Pro 100 and so on.

For other options, you'll want to find out more about yourself. See Help and How-to.