[NBLUG/talk] getting pcmcia network to work, debian style

Bob Blick bobblick at ftml.net
Sat Nov 22 12:15:09 PST 2008


I installed Debian stable on this old 133MHz laptop with 80 meg ram. It
was the only Linux version with a 2.6 kernel that would successfully
install and boot afterwards. There's too much ISA bus stuff I guess.
Anyway, I'm happy enough since I just want something text mode that can
sit in my network/coat closet and not catch fire.

The installer did a netinstall after happily configuring my pcmcia
ethernet card and then left me high and dry after the install.

What can I do to duplicate the installer's apparently simple
configuration of pcmcia + networking? Or do I need to painstakingly
reinvent the wheel?

When I was doing the install I opened up another console window and
noted these modules were used by the card. None of them are loaded now
although they all exist and I can insert them:

pcmcia
pcmcia_core
firmware_class
i82365
rsrc_nonstatic
fmvj18x_cs

The last one is the actual driver for my Fujitsu ethernet card.

The package pcmciautils was installed by the installer but apparently
it's too new to have any good documentation, having replaced pcmcia_cs a
few years ago.

No events show up in /var/log/messages when I insert the card, but if I
modprobe pcmcia and i82365 then I get insert and remove messages.
Nothing else happens no matter whether I modprobe any or all of the
other modules. Nothing that identifies the card, so it never gets
assigned as eth0 either.

I'd love to find out the right way to go about setting this up but
Google doesn't give me anything useful. Debian and linux pcmcia and
laptop docs are written for people who already know the big picture, and
are maybe more interested than me, or else so out of date as to be a big
mistake to try to follow.

I realize I sound a little snippy but I'm in my second day of this.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Bob





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