Need some help with Freesco (NIC hardware address and IRQ)

[Shag]

I'm trying to setup Freesco to route my cable connection. Problem is, it asks for the hardware addresses and IRQs of my NIC - I have absolutely no clue how to find this on an OS-less box. Anyone know how to do this?

[FoBoT]

what kind of nic?
isa or pci?

pci you should be able to leave it blank, just give it the module name (like tulip or 3c509)



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FoBoT
Fixer Of Broken Things
Use the right tool for the right job!

[Shag]

I have one 3COM 3C905B-TX and one D-Link 530TX. The setup program doesn't ask me for modules, just the hardware address and IRQ...

[Shag]

I guess I need the I/O port, not the hardware address. I pulled out the D-Link, just to see if I could get the 3com setup. Set the I/O address to 0 and the IRQ to 11 (which the bios says), but upon boot, it still doesn't recognize the card. Frustrating. Any ideas?

[Stuka]

0 is not a good I/O address. Usually go w/something in the 220 range - but remember, you may need to make that 0x220 - cuz it's in hex. Any how, if the cards came w/a DOS disk, I'd use a DOS boot floppy, check the config w/the programs (which you can also d/l, I'm sure), and use that info.

[Craig McPherson]

First of all, you need to find out if your network card is Plug-and-Play, or not.

If the card is PCI, it's probably PNP (I've never heard of a non-PNP PCI NIC). If it's ISA, you need to jumpers or DIP switches on the card. If it has them, it's probably not Plug-and-Play. Do yourself a favor, throw it in the garbage, and get yourself a new 10/100 card for $7-$14. If you ABSOLUTELY want to use a non-PNP card in Linux, let me know: I know how to figure out IOs and IRQs, but it's a tricky process. (HINT: /proc/interrupts lists IRQs, and /proc/iports lists IOs, but usually NOT until the device using them is actually activated)

Now, if you DO have a PNP card, just don't bother with configuring your card during the installation process. Skip it, get to a prompt, and then modprobe the driver for your card, for example, "modprobe tulip". That should be all it takes: no IO or IRQ stuff required. Then you just need to go into the setup and get that so it's done at boot time.

Good luck.

[JBrian]

The name of the driver for the D-Link is rtl8139 and it comes with the boot floppy.Im pretty sure that the 3com driver (3c90x??) has to be loaded off of the supplementary "modules" floppy. So..
#modprobe rtl8139 should get the D-link going. Getting the 3com going may involve loading freesco onto your harddrive or somehow copying the module onto the boot floppy.