Setting up a Internet connection thru a router

[newenglandcs]

I am pulling my hair out!!!
I just installed Linux Mandrake 7.2. I'm using Gnome for the windows manager.
I've pretty much got everything else set up on the computer, except the network. This isn't my first time using a *nix machine, but it's my first time setting one up. I am a fully bonified newbie!

I have a DLink DFE-530TX+ ethernet adapter installed in one of the PCI slots. I downloaded the Linux driver from the DLink website and it turned out to be the same as one of the net drivers available in the list. Digital 21040/21041/21140 (Tulip)

I'm using the DrakanConf program to configure the network.
I have a Linksys router with 4 other computers on the network and a cable modem for my internet connection. When I set up internet on the other machines, it was pretty straight forward because they're Windows OS's. It autodetected most of the settings.

When I select the net driver from the list, a window pops up and asks if I have any other net interfaces. I select NO, and now then Hardrake comes up and lists all of the disks and devices connected to the computer. When I click on Network Device cards, nothing comes up.

I have no idea what to do!!
I'm going to search thru the forum to see if anyone has similar problems, but I figured i'd post this first!

[rioguia]

you are probably using the wrong driver but i believe that both the drivers you need are in the kernel. there is a lot of confusion about the drivers for these cards because they have similar names but different drivers. The TX uses the via-rhine driver and the TX+ uses the RealTek driver.

The tulip bulb you refer to belongs to a completely different but similarly named card. Donald Becker warns "the D-Link DFE-530TX board uses [VIA Rhine (VT86C100A and 3043) driver] driver, while the DE-530TX board uses the Tulip driver. Check out the driver at http://www.scyld.com/network

if you want to see other folk's experience, try http://lhd.zdnet.com/db/dispproduct.php3?DISP?296

[newenglandcs]

well, i gave it a shot and used the VIA Rhine driver and it didn't seem to work.
I have the DFE-530TX+
I've tried using the Tulip, old Tulip, VIA Rhine, and both Realtek drivers in the list, nothing seems to be working.
Just wondering, in Red Hat linux, would that be able to install the ethernet card easily? I don't know all the commands for installing the ethernet card and setting up the network. The help that's in mandrake hasn't helped me and I haven't been able to find help online. I've searched several sites.
Would I be better sticking with Mandrake or should I go with Red Hat so that I can hopefully learn how to set all of this up?

[DMR]

Changing distros won't necessarily help, and could quite likely yield new and different problems.

As rioguia said, the 530+ uses a Realtek chipset. There are 2 versions of the driver/module for the card, which you seem to have discovered already. The older module is named rtl8139.o and the newer one is 8139too.o; use the 8139too.o module.

Your problem, however, might not be related to the driver at all. There are other issues such as resource (IRQ and I/O address) conflicts which could be interfering with the recognition of your card. Log in as root, get to a command prompt, and walk through the following steps (some of which assume that you have a static IP address, as opposed to using DHCP):

1. Turn off Plug-n-Play support in your BIOS; doing so can eliminate resource (IRQ and I/O address) conflicts on the PCI bus!

2. Use the following command (case sensitive!) to make sure that your card is at least basically identifying itself correctly to the system:

lspci |grep Ethernet

You should see your card's chipset correctly identified in the resulting "Ethernet controller" output.

3. Run the ifconfig command; verify that your NIC is recognized in the resulting output (if you only have one NIC, it will be listed as eth0; you should also always see stats for the loopback device 127.0.0.1). Verify that the IP info (inet addr, Bcast, Mask) is correct, and note the Interrupt and Base address values. Also check for RX/TX errors and collisions. If eth0 is not listed when you run ifconfig, try "ifconfig -a"; the "-a" option forces ifconfig to report all network interfaces, active or not. If eth0 appears only when you run ifconfig with the -a option, it is definitely not running correctly.

4. Run the following two commands:

cat /proc/interrupts |less
cat /proc/ioports |less

For the first command, note the IRQ assigned to eth0; verify that it matches the Interrupt value listed when you ran the ifconfig command, and note if the assigned interrupt is being shared with another device. If so, this doesn't necessarily indicate a problem, but it can.
For the second command, make sure that the address range of your Eternet controller doesn't conflict with/overlap that of another device. Also make sure that the start of the address range corresponds to the Base address value given for eth0 when you ran ifconfig.


6. If the above steps yield errors or indicate conflicts even after you've turned off P-N-P support in the BIOS, you can try physically rearranging the slot order of your cards on the PCI bus to allieviate those conflicts.

7. Verify that the correct module is being loaded for your ethernet card by issuing the "lsmod" command; you should see the module name in the resulting list of loaded modules. If not, issue the following two commands and try again:

depmod -ae
modprobe 8139too

If the module appears as loaded after that, check your /etc/modules.conf file to make sure that it has an entry for the module (this will load the module automagically each time you boot). The line will look like this:

alias eth0 8139too

If the line doesn't exist, add it by editing the file with your favorite text editor.

8. Once you're sure that the NIC is correctly configured and the module is properly loaded, you can try to bring the card up with the following command:

ifconfig eth0 <the NIC's IP address> netmask <the appropriate netmask> up

If you get no errors, you should at least be able to ping the IP address of the NIC.

Try each of the above and post your results, as well as the exact text of any errors you may have received.