netgear fa311 -- anyone get it to work?

[dante_d]

I am trying to configure my netgear fa311 in mandrake 7.2.

I have gotten the Scyld PCI netdriver SRPM installed (from www.scyld.com/network/updates). (http://www.scyld.com/network/updates).)

I have a ton of printouts from various sources on the net with differing instructions on getting this NIC setup in linux, but have had no luck (most seem to imply a higer level of linux networking knowledge than I have.

I can't run netcfg (not found) nor does it seem to be listed in any of my cds RPM directories.

I know I have to "insmod" to load the module, but I don't know what the module is called, if it indeed installed onto my system ok.

I must admit I am overwhelmed here. I have learned quite a bit over the past year, and can get everything else I need working and tweaked, but this is simply an insurmountable obstacle to me at this point.

If I can get the NIC set-up, I'm pretty sure I can take it from there. I'm using ADSL with a static IP (and NOT pppoe).

I can't stand having to access the net thru windows to research this, after months of using ppp in linux.

If anyone has some very newbie-ized step-by step instructions for installing this card, it would be much appreciated. Barring that, I would welcome any suggestions for a distro/nic combo that 'recognizes' the card when installing.

Thanks for any help.

Dante

[dante_d]

Additional info:

insmod natsemi and insmod fa311.0 seem
to work, but then lsmod doesn't show the modules as loaded.

lspci - v reveals the following:

00:08.0 Ethernet controller: National Semiconductor Corporation: Unknown device 0020
Subsystem: Netgear: Unknown device f311
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 9
I/O ports at e400
Memory at eb142000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Expansion ROM at ea000000 [disabled]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

[ericb]

i use one of these in my quake3 server. i just compiled the driver as outlined in the README file on my disk. if you don't have the disk you should be able to download the driver from netgear's support section.

p.s. if you wanna play on the q3 server it lives at: quake3.pcpimps.net. it won't be up again until tomorrow evening since i'm on winter break right now.

[dante_d]

I can't get past the first step in the linux.txt instructions that came on the disk:

gcc -DMODULE -D_KERNEL -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O -m486 -c fa311.c

yields: no input files.

Fine.

./makefile

10,000 error messages fly by as it compiles (or tries to). I didn't bother recording any of them, since this seemed like another dead-end.

Attempts to install the source RPM of drivers that include this card yields a kernel incompatability (the last decimals
.16 where I have .17).

I am using an out-of-the-box Mandrake Install. I can't believe that for some reason every set of instructions I find fail only on my system. I don't have any exotic hardware or anything, so I don't understand why this has to be so hard.

Oh well, I'll do one more fresh install and re-try this one more time. Just wish I had a clue which of the instructions I have found to try. They're all so disparate from one-another.

[Taylor]

Why not just compile it right in to the kernel. I have one of those cards. Just compile in National Semiconductor Corporation as the netdevice driver.

There is a nhf that will help you to compile a new kernel.


------------------
-Taylor

[diskman]

LOL! I *just* bout 2 of those cards today and a shiny new 10/100 hub to replace my 10 hub. Been fighting these damn cards for hours now too!! I ended up buying a Kingston 10/100 (DecTulip) card and that works great. Ended up sticking my original ISA NE2K card for my cablemodem back in the server.

Here is my take on their *lovely* instructions for installing in linux..

Copied the files like the dox said.. (Actually FTPd them to the server via the NE2K)

Renamed them to lowercase.

Chmodded the makefile to executable so it could be executed as per the instructions.

Looked at the makefile script.. Completely worthless! I was trying to make a loadable module. fa311.o to put into /lib/modules/2.2.18.. The LAST line in the makefile script is rm core *.o. That pretty much erases my .o module file! Anyways, got the gcc command to work on the .c file and made a module.. modprobe -a *****es about 'unresolved symbols' and wont load.

I am debating on returning these cards back to Best Buy. One is running in my test PC in 98 just fine tho. I kinda like all my hardware to be MS and Linux compatible tho.

Oh well, just my .02c.

[dante_d]

I'll look into the NHF for compiling the kernel.

At the same time, I'm going to just order an NIC that's listed as supported in both Mandrake and Stormix (thinking of trying Stormix). That way I have an end in sight either way. Looks like the 3com cards are a good bet.

thanks

[bobarian]

I have this card and got it to work after three months of meddling.

Put natsemi.c, pci-scan.c, and the two header files in the same directory. Then scroll through natsemi.c and pci-scan.c down to the bottom and find the compile command.

Then put the two modules in /lib/modules/yourkernelversion/net. Do depmod -a.

Then configure your distro for whatever kind of networking you feel like doing (this is really the easy part.)

[dante_d]

Solved:

Pitched the FA311 and installed a Linksys
LNE100TX http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/biggrin.gif