Home Ethernet LAN

[vtchuck]

Greetings:

Uber Newbie, using YDL 2.3 on iMac 333 / 256 RAM. I have a little "basement area network" with a switch and an Airport. The Airport is set to assign IP adresses to networked machines w/ DHCP. Works great with my wired and wireles Macs running OS's 8.1, 9.2 & X.

Using the KDE 3.0 GUI, I launch Internet setup Wizard, select eth0 and then the problems arise. First, which NIC driver do I select for the internal iMac ethernet device? Or do I need to locate a driver? Once I get get Linux to recognize the ethernet port, it seems like the rest of the set-up should be easy, but I don't know because I can't get past that first step.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. TIA

[bproffitt]

When you set up your Airport card, did you assign it to a new eth1 or is it now taking the place of your eth0 interface?
If eth0=Ethernet, then make sure you do this:

As root, make sure your
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file has a line in it that says

ONBOOT=yes

Then, run these commands on the terminal:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/network stop [ENTER]
/etc/rc.d/init.d/network start [ENTER]

That should activate your eth0 interface.

For more information, see this document on the YDL Web site. It's very good at stepping through setting up an Airport and Ethernet setup.

http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/support/solutions/ydl_general/airport24.shtml

Peace,
Brian Proffitt

[vtchuck]

Sorry I wasn't more clear, but the iMac w/ YDL installed does not have an Airport card installed. The 333 models do not accept the Airport card. My network includes 3 desktop Macs (including the iMac 333) wired via Ethernet cable to an Asante switch. The switch is connected to the Airport via Ethernet cable. The Airport is set up as a DHCP server for the 3 wired Macs and my wireless powerbook. NAT is also enabled on the Airport. The built in Airport dial up modem provides Internet access.

I think that for the Linux iMac, the network set-up would be similar to a small wired LAN with a DHCP server. As far as I can tell, my first problem is determining which of the long list of NIC drivers matches the internal Ethernet connector on the iMac. The second issue is setting up the network configurations to look for and "accept" IP address being generated by the DHCP server (Airport).

Or maybe I'm totally missing something blatantly obvious.

Thanks in advance.

[bproffitt]

I did misunderstand; sorry.

I am surprised YDL didn't pick up your NIC during installation. Do you know what kind of card is in your machine? Is it PCMCIA?

BKP

[vtchuck]

iMac Ethernet cards/ports are soldered to the motherboard. If your port is hosed by a lightning strike or some other disaster, you pretty much have to replace the whole motherboard, so the whole NIC/PCMCIA driver way of thinking is kinda foreign w/ iMacs. I think the drivers are built into the OS.

However, I suspect that Apple buys its iMac Ethernet cards/ports from someone else like 3Com or Asante and that the drivers are the same as the chosen vendor's drivers for standard PCI or PCMCIA NICs. Just a hunch.

So maybe I should be trying to figure out how to get eth0 to "see" a DHCP server?

[bproffitt]

Yes, I thiink that would be your best approach.

Remember that /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file I mentioned? Make sure there is a line that reads:

NAME=(name)
DEVICE=eth0
IPADDR=
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
NETMASK=
GATEWAY=
DNS1=(provide IP address if required)
DNS2=(provide IP address if required)

Run those network stop and start commands and see if that picks it up.

BKP