Installing a Network Card - Newbie needs help

[Peetem]

OK,

I just installed Redhat 9.0. I've always wanted to learn Linux, and hope that I can become as proficient with it as that blasted Windows.

To learn, and to make my machine more useable to me, I would like to connect to the internet via my cable modem. So, I installed a network card.

Well, the system detected the card on bootup and did whatever it does....and so then I go the the Network settings and try to activate my card and it won't do it.....

Now, reading about Linux I have discovered that I perhaps need to "compile it to the Kernel" or something along those lines.....

If this is the case, would someone kindly walk me through this process? I would owe that person a 1000 thank you's and I think it will start me on the road to understanding the power on Linux.

Let's assume an 8139too based card.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Peetem

[hafnium]

ibm has lots of good tutorials on linux stuff. go to this one to get a howto of how to compile a linux kernel.

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwork...xkernel-i.html

you probably don't need to do this though. if you just load the module, your nic should work. type lsmod to see if you actually have this 8139too module loaded. to have modules load on bootup you can either add a 'modprobe 8139too' to the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file. or modify the /etc/rc.d/rc.modules file, just comment out the line that says to load 8139too, if you are in vim just type '/8139too' and it will place your cursor on it. the modules file might be in /etc/init.d/modules or something like that. i am not overly familiar with red hat.

[Peetem]

I typed "lsmod" and it indicated that the module was loaded. However, it also indicated, in the "used" column, a zero rather than a one. Other modules had a one.

Sooooo, I still could not activate this card. Any other ideas? Being so new, I'm sure there is something stupid that I am doing.

Thanks in advance,

Peetem

[zwies]

what brand is your network card?? if it is a realtek then it is pretty simple to set up.

check to see if the card has the IRQ already set as this will stop it from activating if the IRQ is not set. if you want to use the same IRQ as windows then go into windows if you have it installed, which usefull if you are learning to use linux.

when in windows goto the devoice manager and see what the irq on your network card is and then set it to that in linux. if it is already set in linux, then set all the dns stuff and ip stuff to automatically get. as they do not need to be set

if the irq is not set then it will not actiivate, so set this and then you should be fine. was why my NIC did not activate when i first tried.

hope that helps