Debian on Compaq Presario Laptop

[Alaric]

I've just picked up a $400 dollar laptop and, of course, had to get a linux install on there. However, I'm having some major problems getting to the apt download part of the installation. I'm having trouble getting the network set up. The network card is detected later on by the base system installation, as shown at startup, but I'm still too newb to know how do set it up without NDiswrapper (I actually tried installing NDis, but lacked even the MAKE utillity) and netcardconfig. I also have a wireless card built in there as well, but that should be even harder to set up without a GUI. I don't want to waste 12 CD's on a CD install either...Ideas?

[antidrugue]

I don't want to waste 12 CD's on a CD install either...

The first CD is more than enough. You can even install Debian using the "netinstall" (a small 150mb CD).

Can you give us more details ?

What is the laptop model ?
What is the wireless card model ? (It's possible that you don't need ndiswrapper.)
Which version of Debian are you installing ?

[Alaric]

Like I said, I can't do a netinstall because it doesn't recognize my ethernet card. Actually, it does claim to find a floppy drive, but my laptop doesn't have one! I was thinking maybe using knoppix (which does detect my network card) to copy the .deb packages to my (base) installation of debian. What would be the best way to do this?

[Alaric]

Sorry that it took me so long to post the specs you asked for, I was attempting another install (got kde up and running but still need network access). I've got 2.4 kernel version with a Realtek RTL-8139/8139c/8139c+. I've got Debian set up with KDE and used the networking tool to get the card running (supposedly with DHCP) but I still can't log into the network. I have DHCP client 2.0pl5.

[antidrugue]

Like I said, I can't do a netinstall because it doesn't recognize my ethernet card.

Still, if you want to install Debian, the first CD is enough. I would recommand using Debian Etch (testing) instead of Sarge (stable). It is set to be release on December 4 and it is already perfectly stable.

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/et...1/i386/iso-cd/

[Alaric]

Wait what? How am I supposed to browse the internet and upgrade my kernel to the latest version etc. without a network connection to the internet? That is my main problem. Yes I have a gui and a filesystem, but that's useless to me unless I can (easily) get good software on it. Now what were you saying about sarge and testing Debian versions?

[antidrugue]

Well, I didn't saw your last message saying that you got Sarge installed.

Network doesn't work ? You have a realtek 8139 in there ?

Make sure the module for your card is inserted :

lsmod | grep 8139

Then post the output of

cat /etc/network/interfaces

[Alaric]

Here's the interfaces, but I would like it to start up as dhcp
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.107
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.1
broadcast 192.168.0.255
name Ethernet LAN card
auto eth0

Here's the lsmod
8139too 12328 1
mii 1952 0 [8139too]
crc32 2848 0 [8139too]

I'm going the try just copying the knoppix interfaces. Of coures, I'll make a backup first.

[Alaric]

<Sigh> Dhcp gets hung up when I copy the knoppix config

[eraker]

To get eth0 working on dhcp in debian you only need to edit your /etc/network/interfaces file to read like this:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Assuming eth0 is your only interface, that's all you need. Don't forget to put a blank line at the end. I've been told that it needs a blank line at the end.