VIA onboard lan

[Sprdthword]

I am brand new to Linux and so far I have to say I wish I would have stayed with Windows :( So I hope someone out there can help me.
I have an ECS motherboard with onboard lan which I have identified as a VIA vt8233. The motherboard came with a Linux driver, but so far I have had no luck whatsoever getting it installed.
The manufacturers instructions say to make a temp directory and copy the tar there and then untar the archive - did that!
Then I am to "compile the driver and it will generate linuxfet.0, and copy it to correct driver installation path . . ."
Here's where the problems begin. I now have four files besides the original tar file in the temp directory - linux.txt, Makefile, linuxfet.h and linuxfet.c. While in that directory I type "make" (no quotes) and it says the make command is not available. It is quite obvious to me that I have no clue how to compile this thing.
Even if I did - the next thing I have to do is make sure the conf.modules file has the proper entry then reboot then intall the driver - seems like a strange sequence:confused:
To install I am to run insmod linuxfet - OK, but from where?
Then I am to use the ifconfig command to assign the IP address - but my network is hooked up to a Router which is the DHCP and assigns the address to the other nodes (all Windows boxes) dynamically - so am I to create a static IP address for this box? By the way - my long term goal is for this to be a file server running SAMBA in a school with about 30 Windows XP boxes accessing it all day :eek:
Sorry this is so long, but I am sure that Linux has come as far as it has due to the great patience of those of you who are going to help me :D
Thanks in advance.
Tom

[froggy3132000]

Try this link for step-by-step instructions.

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/Networks/NIC_Installation.html


once you have your NIC working you can use your DHCP service from the router to get an IP.

what distro are you using?

[Sprdthword]

Thanks for the link - but I had already read that set of instructions. The problem is those instructions are working with an existing driver/module within Linux - support for the RealTek 8139 - so they don't tell you anything about compiling.
I'm running Red Hat 7.0 with the 2.2.16-22 Kernel, which I was going to try to update to the 2.4.19 Kernel but that was a whole new nightmare - a story for another thread :)

[froggy3132000]

oh, redhat.com's website has a good document for compiling device drivers.

[jumpedintothefire]

You are doing this as root?? root is the owner and has rwx on the directory?? While in the directory do a: ls -la There may be some other hidden files like .configure

try:
./configure
make

Then if all goes well, without errors:
make install

[Sprdthword]

Thanks for the posts - but I'm not getting what you say I should get - and yes I am logged in as root.
In the directory /temp, when I do the ls -la I get:
[root@localhost /temp]# ls -la
total 316
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 23 15:40 .
drwxr-xr-x 19 root root 4096 Sep 23 16:04 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4767 Dec 7 2001 Makefile
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10020 Dec 7 2001 linux.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 112108 Dec 7 2001 linuxfet.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 15392 Dec 7 2001 linuxfet.h
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 153600 Sep 23 15:40 linuxfet.tar

as you can see there is no .configure
Something else is driving me crazy - everything I read keeps talking about a directory called "linux" that should be in the /usr/src/linux tree
but when I go to my usr/src and run the ls -la command I get:
[root@localhost /root]# ls -la
total 80
drwxr-x--- 9 root root 4096 Sep 23 16:05 .
drwxr-xr-x 19 root root 4096 Sep 23 16:04 ..
-rw------- 1 root root 0 Sep 23 12:54 .ICEauthority
-rw------- 1 root root 66 Sep 23 16:05 .Xauthority
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1126 Aug 23 1995 .Xresources
-rw------- 1 root root 534 Sep 24 11:53 .bash_history
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24 Jun 10 2000 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 266 Jun 10 2000 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 176 Aug 23 1995 .bashrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 210 Jun 10 2000 .cshrc
drwx------ 5 root root 4096 Sep 23 12:54 .gnome
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Sep 23 12:42 .gnome-desktop
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Sep 23 12:41 .gnome_private
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Sep 23 10:09 .kde
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 595 Sep 23 16:11 .kderc
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 23 12:54 .mc
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Sep 23 12:41 .sawfish
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 196 Jul 11 2000 .tcshrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4 Sep 23 16:05 .wmrc
-rw------- 1 root root 1701 Sep 23 18:44 .xsession-errors
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Sep 23 12:24 Desktop

So I tried this:
[root@localhost /]# cd /usr/src
[root@localhost /src]# dir
redhat

Nothing about a "linux":confused:
Anyway - I'm beginning to see the is not the OS for those who don't have lots of time on their hands
Any and all help will be appreciated.
PS - couldn't find that document on Redhat's site:(

[jumpedintothefire]

make /usr/src/linux a symlink to the /usr/src/redhat directory.

open the .c file in a text editor at the bottom there should be something like this:

Local variables:
compile-command: "gcc -D__KERNEL__ -I../../include -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe -fno-strength-reduce -march=i586 -DMODULE -DMODVERSIONS -include ../../include/linux/modversions.h -DEXPORT_SYMTAB -c"
End:

gcc -D blabla is the compiling command....

Hope it works for you....