Linux Hardware Compatibility

[davidov31]

Could someone please point me in the direction of the definitive list of what hardware will work with Linux, and which won't?
I have a Spark.com ADSL Modem Router, model number AR41/2C, which I can dial into with Windows but when I try with Linux (Mepis, to be more precise) I get the error message

"The connection was refused when attempting to contact 10.0.0.2"

All the lights on the router are flashing as they should do. When I tried to ping the router, I got no reply.

Any help at all would be appreciated, I'm totally new to Linux and finding it quite a struggle so far, but I don't want to give up without a fight

[Flatline]

Could you (as root in a terminal) run

ifconfig

and post the output? That model of router uses an ethernet cable (crossover cable, unless you have a switch in between it and the machine) according to what I could find, so the problem may actually be your network card; maybe it's not supported.

[davidov31]

Thanks for the lighening fast reply, I'll just switch into Linux now (I'm SO tired of dual booting!) and I'll post the results shortly.

[davidov31]

OK, here are the results

root@1[~]# ifconfig
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:55 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:55 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:3427 (3.3 KiB) TX bytes:3427 (3.3 KiB)

[Flatline]

Yep, like I thought...it didn't recognize your card. Could you run

lspci

in a terminal as root and post the results? Is it an onboard card? If so, what is the make and model of the motherboard?

[davidov31]

Which part of the results of ifconfig showed that the card was not recognised?

OK, here are the results of lspci - and the card is not an onboard card, it's just a bog standard Realtek RTL8139 10/100 card.

root@1[~]# lspci
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8385 [K8T800 AGP] Host Bridge (rev 01)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI bridge [K8T800 South]
0000:00:07.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:08.0 RAID bus controller: Promise Technology, Inc. PDC20378 (FastTrak 378/SATA 37 (rev 02)
0000:00:09.0 Multimedia video controller: Zoran Corporation ZR36057PQC Video cutting chipset (rev 02)
0000:00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Yukon Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Adapter (rev 13)
0000:00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
0000:00:0f.0 RAID bus controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA RAID Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
0000:00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
0000:00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
0000:00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
0000:00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
0000:00:10.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 86)
0000:00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 ISA bridge [K8T800 South]
0000:00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60)
0000:00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
0000:00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
0000:00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
0000:00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV18 [GeForce4 MX 4000 AGP 8x] (rev a4)

[Flatline]

ifconfig only showed a loopback interface, no "real" network cards. You may be able to do something as simple as

modprobe rtl8139

then

ifconfig eth0 up

. It is a bit odd, because Mepis should recognize that card. Have you tried passing noapic or acpi=off at the bootloader? If the above mentioned stuff doesn't work, could you run

lsmod

and post the output?

[Flatline]

Also, it looks like there IS an onboard ethernet card.

0000:00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Yukon Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Adapter (rev 13)

You could try enabling/disabling it in the bios to see whether there is a conflict.

[davidov31]

OK, firstly I disabled the onboard LAN in the BIOS, then I ran the three commands you mentioned. Still nok

root@1[~]# modprobe rt18139
FATAL: Module rt18139 not found.
root@1[~]# ifconfig eth0 up
root@1[~]# lsmod
Module Size Used by
ipv6 231296 13
parport_pc 30532 1
lp 8748 0
parport 20032 2 parport_pc,lp
binfmt_misc 8840 1
ipt_limit 2176 2
ipt_state 1664 72
ipt_LOG 6272 2
ipt_REJECT 5504 2
ip_conntrack_irc 70704 0
ip_conntrack_ftp 71344 0
ip_conntrack 39412 3 ipt_state,ip_conntrack_irc,ip_conntrack_ftp
iptable_filter 3072 1
ip_tables 16640 5 ipt_limit,ipt_state,ipt_LOG,ipt_REJECT,iptable_fil ter
pcmcia 16900 0
yenta_socket 17920 0
pcmcia_core 45632 2 pcmcia,yenta_socket
8250 18180 0
serial_core 18048 1 8250
nls_cp437 5632 0
nls_iso8859_1 3968 0
ntfs 165904 0
af_packet 16648 0
snd_via82xx 21440 1
snd_ac97_codec 66936 1 snd_via82xx
gameport 3584 1 snd_via82xx
8139too 21504 0
mii 3968 1 8139too
zr36060 8972 1
adv7175 5384 0
saa7110 6664 0
zr36067 130620 0
i2c_algo_bit 8712 1 zr36067
i2c_core 17808 3 adv7175,saa7110,i2c_algo_bit
videocodec 7316 2 zr36060,zr36067
videodev 7424 1 zr36067
sbp2 21128 0
ohci1394 29956 0
snd_opl3_lib 8832 0
snd_sb16_dsp 9600 0
snd_pcm_oss 46112 0
snd_mixer_oss 15872 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 77832 4 snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_sb16_dsp,snd_pcm_os s
snd_timer 20612 2 snd_opl3_lib,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 7428 2 snd_via82xx,snd_pcm
snd_sb16_csp 18048 0
snd_sb_common 13440 2 snd_sb16_dsp,snd_sb16_csp
snd_hwdep 7200 2 snd_opl3_lib,snd_sb16_csp
snd_mpu401_uart 6016 1 snd_via82xx
snd_rawmidi 19744 1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device 6924 2 snd_opl3_lib,snd_rawmidi
snd 45668 16 snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_opl3_lib,snd_sb16_d sp,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd _sb16_csp,snd_sb_common,snd_hwdep,snd_mpu401_uart, snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
soundcore 7264 1 snd
ndiswrapper 114356 0
tsdev 5696 0
sg 28960 0
joydev 8000 0
evdev 7168 0
usbhid 28480 0
thermal 11016 0
speedtch 9864 0
usb_atm 12720 1 speedtch
atm 35032 1 usb_atm
processor 19764 1 thermal
fan 3332 0
button 5136 0
battery 8324 0
ac 3588 0
floppy 52816 0
uhci_hcd 28944 0
ohci_hcd 19080 0
root@1[~]#

[Flatline]

It looks like it loaded a module that it thinks your card should be able to use

8139too 21504 0

. What does ifconfig say now that you've disabled the onboard?