Enabling ethernet in Linux

[blazerazor]

beforehand, Please excuse my elementary level of knowledge on this subject...
I have a IBM T22 thinkpad to play with, so I installed slackware 10.2 with all the packages with the KDE startx. I am inexperienced at using Linux, but when I put in 'ifconfig' I getting only 'lo' and eth1 back, (eth1 says no wireless extensions).
Do I need to somehow turn on the built in ethernet jack?

And what is a good wireless pcimia card that is Linux friendly to purchase?
I have a old linksys WPC11 ver.3 card, but my past attempt to configure this card on a really old compaq lappy was futile and non productive. (althought the case has been cracked and broken off so the points to solder a antenna to it would be very easy, and it still works under 2000pro on my other lappy)


Any pointer to some info on this subject would be great.

 

[xSauronx]

i dont have any experience with slack

but do you have an eth0 entry in /etc/network/interfaces? try

cat /etc/network/interfaces


my entry for eth0 is as follows:

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto eth0

you can try

ifup eth0

if theres an entry. if its not active it wont show up under ifconfig, and if it doesnt have an entry in /interfaces to make it active, it wont be.

kinda odd that the wireless would be setup, and not the ethernet, but ive never used slack so *shrug*
as for a pcmcia card, i cant name a vendor off the top of my head that ive used. i have an Asus 167-gl usb adapter that works ok. you need to focus more on chipset, i think, than manufacturer.

drag, who is usually found in the OS forum, has a link to some edimax stuff in his sig for linux compatible wifi. we got some pcmcia cards in at work from edimax, but i havent had an opportunity to play with them.

 

[p0lar]

Check your dmesg, usually located in any given user's or root's environmental variable, PATH -or- /bin/dmesg.

i.e.

/bin/dmesg | grep eth

 

[nweaver]

sounds like it made your onboard card eth1? (or do you have an onboard wireless?)

post the output of the above dmesg from polar, and then the entire ifconfig eth1 output, and the network config files (not sure what slack uses)

Are you on a network that you should be using DHCP?

Slack might be a rough start to linux life, have you looked at Ubuntu or Fedora Core?

 

[DaiShan]

$ifconfig eth0 <ip address that you want to assign to the adapter> up

Will bring up eth0 with the ip address that you specify.

 

[p0lar]

Originally posted by: DaiShan
$ifconfig eth0 <ip address that you want to assign to the adapter> up

Will bring up eth0 with the ip address that you specify.

Whoa there.. slow down.

1) Where did you plan to specify the subnet mask?
2) That won't work as a non-root user either.

 

[Nothinman]

I have a IBM T22 thinkpad to play with, so I installed slackware 10.2 with all the packages with the KDE startx. I am inexperienced at using Linux, but when I put in 'ifconfig' I getting only 'lo' and eth1 back, (eth1 says no wireless extensions).
Do I need to somehow turn on the built in ethernet jack?

Slackware's probably not the best starting point if you're not familiar with Linux yet. But if eth1 is showing up then something used eth0 at some point, possibly your WPC11 if it was plugged in when you did the install. Also if you have a firewire port it'll usually get assigned a network interface as well but it'll be easy to pick out because it'll have a huge Hwaddr, for example mine is 00-11-D8-00-00-96-57-32-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00.

I have a old linksys WPC11 ver.3 card, but my past attempt to configure this card on a really old compaq lappy was futile and non productive. (althought the case has been cracked and broken off so the points to solder a antenna to it would be very easy, and it still works under 2000pro on my other lappy)

If it's a prism-based model it should work just fine out of the box. I have one of those and have never had an issue with it.

1) Where did you plan to specify the subnet mask?

ifconfig will guess what mask to use by which IP you give it, it probably won't be right but it'll probably give you some connectivity.

 

[p0lar]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
ifconfig will guess what mask to use by which IP you give it, it probably won't be right but it'll probably give you some connectivity.

I'm aware of that, but those kinds of habits are the same ones that lead new guys down the path of misinformation. Subnetting is not best left at a guess. 🙂