Damn Small Linux and RealTek RTL8139; no connection

[alienmagic]

I'm trying out DSL (2.2) for the rare occasion when I only have access to XP. After it loads, I am unable to get an IP address through DHCP, and if I manually configure the IP address, netmask, gateway, and DNS, I still cannot connect to the network. The NIC in one of the machines I've tried DSL on is a RealTek RTL8139. I've also tried running it on a machine that has a Broadcom 440x NIC.

On both boxes, eth0 is automatically givin an IP address of 10.0.2.15, and a mac address of 52:54:00:12:34:56 (which is not the mac address of the NIC on either machine). If I use the GUI netcardconfig and choose DHCP, I get a status of "Ok", but it still does not have a proper address from the DHCP server.

I've done several extensive Google searches and only found one hit where someone was experiencing a similar problem, but they had different hardware, so it doesn't seem to be a common problem.

Does this simply mean that neither of these NICs is supported in DSL, or am I missing something?

[budman7]

I have a RealTek RTL8139 card and it works just fine with DSL 1.5.
The 8139too driver is used.

I go now to download DSL 2.2 to make sure that it works there as well.

[alienmagic]

I have a RealTek RTL8139 card and it works just fine with DSL 1.5.
The 8139too driver is used.

I go now to download DSL 2.2 to make sure that it works there as well.

I'm going to download 1.5 and see if it makes a difference.

[budman7]

Just checkedthe 2.2 iso and got online real quick.
No problems whatsoever.

Are you a buckeye fan, if so, that could be your problem.
j/k, I am a big fan of U of M.

Seriously, have you tried using the netcardconfig tool?

Right-click on the desktop, select System>Net setup>netcardconfig

Are you using a router?

[alienmagic]

Seriously, have you tried using the netcardconfig tool?

As I mentioned in the original post, that didn't work. It comes back with "Ok" but still won't connect.

I found that the machine with the broadcom is actually able to surf the web. I had only tried command line networking when I tried that machine before, using ping and telnet, and neither of those works on the machine with the broadcomm NIC, but web surfing does.

On the laptop with the RealTek NIC, all networking is failing.

[budman7]

Sorry, I missed where you said you used the netcardconfig tool.
Is this wireless?
Are you using a router?

The reason I ask about the router is, routers can help alot.

[alienmagic]

I'm wired to the network at work, and although I have wireless at home, I'm cabling this machine there too. I haven't tried using the wireless adapter on this machine on my home network yet.

At work the DHCP server is a Win2k3 DC. At home DHCP is supplied from the router.

BTW, thanks for taking the time to offer some suggestions. It's much appreciated.

[budman7]

I take it that DSL 1.5 did not make a diference?


To me this is really strange as I have never had a problem with getting livecds connected to the net.

The only time I had trouble was getting the Gentoo 2005.1 to connect.
Even then I only had to delete one file, and then dhcp would work.
I believe it was "/var/run/.eth0.pid" or something similar.

I will check the DSL forums to see if they havesomething similar.

[budman7]

Check out this thread on the DSL forums.
http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin/fo...t=6263;hl=dhcp

Look at what they are saying about "pump"

[alienmagic]

After reading the info from the DSL forum, I thought I might get somewhere with the pump commands, but it didn't work for me.

I did get DSL running on two other PCs, both using the Intel Pro 100 / VE adapter. I'll just use it on those machines for now, and maybe keep tinkering with the laptop to try to work it out eventually.