pcmcia network card configuration/installation

External Since: Oct 23, 2009 Posts: 2

I have a network card problem and I'm hoping that I can get some advice
and information here.

I've installed Slackware 12.2 on an old laptop I have. The problem I'm
having is to get the network card working.

I know the card is okay and works on this computer because I had it
working with a previous linux distribution, Fedora. But I want to try
Slackware, so I installed it. No network connection, the card just isn't
set up by the OS at installation time.

The computer is a Dell Latitude CPi A Series. The network card is a
Xircom Credit Card Ethernet 10/100 Modem 56 (CEM56-100).

I've searched the web and read up the Slackware installation guide and
I'm just about pulling my hair out trying to fix this thing.

The correct module for the network card is xirc2ps_cs which I have
installed.

Here is the output from lsmod:

Module Size Used by
.....
pcmcia 36524 2 xirc2ps_cs,serial_cs
.....
pcmcia_core 35604 5 /
xirc2ps_cs,serial_cs,pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic

(I've trimmed that to save space)

I know that xirc2ps_cs is the correct module because it's used by
Tinycore linux which I have booted and used in the computer just yesterday.

The pcmcia card is acknowledged by the kernel at boot. Here's the
relevant part of dmesg:

pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 0

However there is no detail of the card in either lspci or lspcmcia.

Here's the relevant output of lspci -vv

00:03.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1225 (rev 01)
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr-
Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort-
<TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 168, Cache Line Size: 128 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
Region 0: Memory at 30000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=05, sec-latency=176
Memory window 0: 20000000-23fff000 (prefetchable)
Memory window 1: 24000000-27fff000
I/O window 0: 00001000-000010ff
I/O window 1: 00001400-000014ff
BridgeCtl: Parity- SERR- ISA- VGA- MAbort- >Reset+ 16bInt+ PostWrite+
16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001
Kernel driver in use: yenta_cardbus
Kernel modules: yenta_socket

00:03.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1225 (rev 01)
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr-
Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort-
<TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 168, Cache Line Size: 128 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
Region 0: Memory at 30001000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Bus: primary=00, secondary=06, subordinate=09, sec-latency=176
Memory window 0: 28000000-2bfff000 (prefetchable)
Memory window 1: 2c000000-2ffff000
I/O window 0: 00001800-000018ff
I/O window 1: 00001c00-00001cff
BridgeCtl: Parity- SERR- ISA- VGA- MAbort- >Reset+ 16bInt+ PostWrite+
16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001
Kernel driver in use: yenta_cardbus
Kernel modules: yenta_socket

And lspcmcia -vvv produces this:

Socket 0 Bridge: [yenta_cardbus] (bus ID: 0000:00:03.0)
Configuration: state: on ready: no
Voltage: 5.0V Vcc: 5.0V Vpp: 5.0V
Available IRQs: 3, 4, 7, 9, 10
Available ioports: --none--
Available iomem: --none--
Socket 1 Bridge: [yenta_cardbus] (bus ID: 0000:00:03.1)
Configuration: state: on ready: no
Available IRQs: 3, 4, 7, 9, 10
Available ioports: --none--
Available iomem: --none--

ifconfig -a

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:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

ifconfig eth0

eth0: error fetching interface information: Device not found

/usr/adm/messages contains the following:

Oct 23 16:18:06 achilles kernel: Yenta: CardBus bridge found at
0000:00:03.0 [0000:0000]
Oct 23 16:18:06 achilles kernel: Yenta: Using CSCINT to route CSC
interrupts to PCI
Oct 23 16:18:06 achilles kernel: Yenta: Routing CardBus interrupts to PCI
Oct 23 16:18:06 achilles kernel: Yenta TI: socket 0000:00:03.0, mfunc
0x01261222, devctl 0x66
Oct 23 16:18:06 achilles kernel: input: PS/2 Generic Mouse as
/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input2
Oct 23 16:18:06 achilles kernel: Yenta: ISA IRQ mask 0x0698, PCI irq 11
Oct 23 16:18:06 achilles kernel: Socket status: 30000010
Oct 23 16:18:06 achilles kernel: Yenta: CardBus bridge found at
0000:00:03.1 [0000:0000]
Oct 23 16:18:06 achilles kernel: Yenta: Using CSCINT to route CSC
interrupts to PCI
Oct 23 16:18:06 achilles kernel: Yenta: Routing CardBus interrupts to PCI
Oct 23 16:18:06 achilles kernel: Yenta TI: socket 0000:00:03.1, mfunc
0x01261222, devctl 0x66
Oct 23 16:18:06 achilles kernel: Yenta: ISA IRQ mask 0x0698, PCI irq 11
Oct 23 16:18:06 achilles kernel: Socket status: 30000006

I'm a newbie to Slackware and while I've been using linuxes for several
years off and on, I'm getting out of my depth here.

What I want to know is what I need to do to get the system to respond to
the network card when it boots. I'd really like to know what is
happening at a more fundamental level too, but I'll be happy to have a
laptop that will connect to the network.

Can anyone offer any help or pointers, please?

Stuart

External Since: Nov 02, 2008 Posts: 81

On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:21:43 GMT, stuart <deleteme.RemoveThis@frogspawn.org.uk> wrote:

>I have a network card problem and I'm hoping that I can get some advice
>and information here.
>
>I've installed Slackware 12.2 on an old laptop I have. The problem I'm
>having is to get the network card working.
>
>I know the card is okay and works on this computer because I had it
>working with a previous linux distribution, Fedora. But I want to try
>Slackware, so I installed it. No network connection, the card just isn't
>set up by the OS at installation time.
>
>The computer is a Dell Latitude CPi A Series. The network card is a
>Xircom Credit Card Ethernet 10/100 Modem 56 (CEM56-100).

I don't have the same card, I do have Xircom RBE-100 in an old Toshiba
laptop (500MHz Coppermine CPU) that I recently installed slack-13.0 to,
without any problems.

I do NFS slack install, so the card was found by the installer too.

I did:
chmod -x /etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia

to turn off slack's pcmcia wakeup script, as it favours the older PCIC
interface, you could also edit rc.pcmcia to tickle yenta_socket first,
but it seems unneeded, at least for my CradBus device.

I also make a custom kernel soon after unstall to suit the hardware,
and disable slack's rc.modules-2.6.29.6 with chmod -x ...

>
>I've searched the web and read up the Slackware installation guide and
>I'm just about pulling my hair out trying to fix this thing.
>
>The correct module for the network card is xirc2ps_cs which I have
>installed.

You're asking for the older 16bit driver. Try the 32bit CardBus
driver, xircom_cb. Maybe recent kernels' support for 16bit Xircom
has changed? Been a long time since I tried the 16bit -- it used
to work here too.

You can view kernel .config and dmesg for my Toshiba's custom kernel
here: http://bugsplatter.id.au/kernel/boxen/toshi/ -- it'll soon be
linux-2.6.31.5

Also ask on alt.os.linux.slackware if you don't get a good answer
here.

Grant.
--
http://bugsplatter.id.au