[NTLUG:Discuss] Problems w/ RH 7.2 and Netgear FA411

[kbrannen@gte.net]

Philip Stetz wrote:
> Trying to install a netgear fa411 on my Dell Inspirion
> 7500 laptop running RH 7.2 (2.4.7-10) with no luck.  I

I had a Dell like this once.  It ran PCMCIA stuff quite well.  It was a nice 
machine, as long as you didn't have too many airport terminals to carry it 
thru. :-)

> don't believe the card is even being recognized as
> there are no lights on the pcmcia card that indicate
> link / activity nor do i hear a beep when i insert or
> remove the card. I am positive the card works as I
> tried it on a windows box and got it up on the
> network. 

It does require a little something to set up, IIRC. :-)

> 
> I ran lsmod and did not recieve anything that relates
> to a pcmcia module. Then i checked out cardmgr's log
> and noticed the following: 
> 
> config error, file './config.opts' line 8: no function
> bindings 
> no pcmcia driver in /proc/devices 
> exiting 

This is extremely important!  It sounds like you have a config file error 
(that would be in /etc/pcmcia).  I no longer have that laptop, but a backup of 
it shows line 8 to be:

include port 0x100-0x4ff, port 0x800-0x8ff, port 0xc00-0xcff

I've never used a Netgear card, but the 3com one I had was easy to get working 
(as was a wireless network card).  You might also try searching with Google 
for "linux netgear fa411" and see if you can find hints from others who have 
done this, or at least find out what chipset it has so you can know if you 
even have a hope of it working.  The pcmcia package docs should come with a 
"SUPPORTED.CARDS" file; see if the Netgear card is listed in there.

The current version of the PCMCIA stuff is *much* better than the earlier 
versions.  You'll probably need to modify network.opts (in the same dir) to 
get the correct GW, DHCP, etc. options set at boot time.

> 
> Just to make sure, I verified the pcmcia-cs rpm and
> did not see any problems. 
> 
> What am I missing here? Any help would be greatly
> appreciated. 

You must have cardmgr running or you'll never be successful.  So if you do a 
"ps -ef | grep cardmgr" and don't see that process running, you're card will 
never work.  You can goto /etc/rc.d/init.d and stop your "network" and 
"pcmcia" services, and then bring them up one at a time (pcmcia first).

HTH,
Kevin