[bearcat]

Hey everyone, I was here a while back and I never got linux working properly on my computer. I'm back to give it a second try.

Ok, so linux installs fine and boots fine and all that, but I can't get the internet configured! So, one of you guru's please check out my hardware and see if it's compatible with linux. I have fedora downloaded already, but I thought I might sharpen my ax before I chop down the tree so to speak.

Well mainly, is my ethernet card compatible with fedora? :

VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter


If that's not compatible than could someone kindly direct me to a low cost %100 compatible ethernet card?

If it is compatible could someone tell me what I might be doing wrong? Any command I might try to get a closer look at my little problem here.

Please help someone who is sick of windows!

[Dapper Dan]

I presume when you say you couldn't get the card working, it was with the distro you tried before? Which version of Fedora will(are) you use(ing), Core 1 or Core 2? According to this site, there are drivers for your card and it should work. I would imagine the drivers are also available with both Cores. If the Fedora install doesn't find and feed it a driver, I'd try the one from the above link.

If you can't get your card working, $10.00 to $15.00 at your local computer store will buy you a NIC that will. I have several NICs and have never run into a problem with Linux not recognizing any of them. A Linksys NIC is always a good choice. I believe it uses the tulip drivers which come standard with most distros, and Fedora will find and configure it right away, should you decide to buy one.

[danleff]

I have this card in my box with Fedora Core 2 and it should work out of the box in Fedora. I assume that you have it currently working in Windows or another OS?

I also assume that it is an onboard NIC? If so, is onboard LAN enabled in the bios? Also PNP OS in the bios should be set to NO.

Is this a nForce chipset motherboard?

When you did the install, did you set DHCP active for the connection (find ip address automatically using DHCP)? If not, you will have to set it in the Network Configuration Tool.

Fedora has a network config utility that you can look at. Go to start-->System Settings-->Redhat Network Configuration.

See if the connection to the card is set as active.

Post back what you find, then we can configure the card from here.

[bearcat]

I was using redhat 9.0 at the time and I had DHCP active but it failed. Then I tried to manually set it up at the network configuration thing. I put my ip address in my subnet mask yadda yah, set it to active and no luck. My ethernet card is integrated, by the way. Though, now that I look back on it... I really didn't know what I was doing... I didn't really understand ip addresses. I think I may have used a different ip address than my own. mine is XXX.XXX.XX.2 And I think I used XXX.XXX.XX.3 But I do think I'm better equipped this time.



Here's a full spec page of my computer's out of box features. I have added some things though. I added a nvidia card that's linux compatible at dapper dans request. And I now have 768 Mb's of RAM. But anyway, here's the list:

General Features:
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition pre-installed
AMD athlon XP 2600+ Socket A processor
512 MB DDR SDRAM (1 GB maximum)
80 GB hard disk drive
CD-RW/DVD-ROM combination drive
1.44 MB floppy disk drive
Integrated ProSavage KM266 graphics w/ 32 MB shared
memory
Integrated AC'97 audio
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet controller
56K V.92 PCI modem



Motherboard Features:
Via KM266 Chipset
One (1) AGP slot
Three (3) PCI slots (one occupied)
Two (2) 184-pin DIMM slots (one occupied)



I/O Ports:
Two (2) PS/2 ports
One (1) 15-pin standard VGA connector
One (1) 9-pin standard serial port
One (1) 25-pin standard parallel port
Six (6) USB ports (four at back and two at front)
One (1) RJ-45 standard Ethernet jack
One (1) RJ-11 standard phone jack
Line-in, microphone, and line-out jacks



Case Features:
Two (2) 5.25-inch external drive bays (one occupied)
One (1) 3.5-inch external drive bay (occupied)
Two (2) 3.5-inch internal drive bays (one occupied)
100-240V, 50/60Hz power supply


That should give y'all a closer look at most of my hardware.



Case Dimensions:
14.5 x 7 x 16.5-inches (H x W x D)

Quote:

presume when you say you couldn't get the card working, it was with the distro you tried before? Which version of Fedora will(are) you use(ing), Core 1 or Core 2?

I suppose it's core 2, because I downloaded it this week.

Quote:

If so, is onboard LAN enabled in the bios? Also PNP OS in the bios should be set to NO.

I have no idea what PNP OS is, and where do I access the bios?

Bear with me, I've only used linux for about a week total, and that was last year.

How fast should I burn the iso's? When I burned redhat 9.0, I burned it as fast as it would go, is that wrong?


Another question: Was the driver for my type of ethernet card unavailible or something when redhat 9.0 was supported? Or was it just not one of the cards that work right out of the box?

[Dapper Dan]

Burn the ISO's at 8x, no faster. When your computer boots, you should see something on the screen at some point like "For setup press F2" or something like that. Do whatever it says to access the BIOS.

There are issues witht the Fedora Core 2 partition manager that danleff can tell you more about. There is a problem there with it and XP. See this post for more info.

If you can get past this partitioning issue, I think you'll be in good shape.

Also, once everything is installed and all the hardware issues are settled, get back with me on how to set up apt-get RPM on your box. It will make things MUCH easier!

[bearcat]

Will the error occur If I erase my entire drive and install linux? Or only If I setup a dual boot?

[danleff]

First of all, thank you for posting all the specs. on the system. This tells us something about the problem.

But do me a favor. Post the exact make and model of the motherboard, or if it is a Dell or whatever, the make and model of the system. This will also tell us how to exactly get into the bios, if needed. It will also tell us something about the onboard NIC card.

I see that Win XP is preinstalled, so do you have the XP cd disks? If not, I would not use the system as your test bench for Linux. Some of these systems have a small partition written with bios and system informations (like Dell and Gateway systems) that you want to avoid mucking up the works, especially with any partitioning issues.

You should not have had to manually set the NIC card. But depending on the motherboard/system that you have, RedHat may not have been properly detecting the onboard NIC.

I assume that you are connected to the internet through high speed cable or DSL? Through a router or directly to a cable modem?

...and I assume internet has been working with your current OS?

The issue with the partitioning problem is with Win XP installed in a dual boot situation, but I suspect that the partitioning issue would crop up later when/if you attempt to install another OS. If you want to have XP on your system, then do not delete XP, as it needs to be installed first before Fedora. You cant go back and install XP later on. So, if this is on your main system, you want to make sure that you have a working OS operating on it in either case.

[bearcat]

Model:Compaq Presario S5000CL
Motherboard: VIA ProSavageDDR KM266 It's crappy, so if I have to replace it, it'll be a good excuse to get a new one. And while I'm at it I'll grab a new case... and then a new video card and then I'll.... http://www.via.com.tw/en/ProSavage%20Chipsets/km266.jsp<-- There's a site with some information about my chipset.


I do have recovery disks. I've used them alot.

I have a recovery partition which takes up about 6 gigabytes that I could be actually using. I'm connected through a router with dsl. I'm thinking I'm going delete windows. If something really screws up, I could reformat really easy so... The internet works with my system in windows xp home edition.

[bearcat]

Sucess! The internet worked right out of the box, like you said. But now I'm concerned with the sound. I have a cd full of mp3's and I extract them but I get an error "Could not pause playback"

They are now .ogg files. When I test the sound I hear the guitar and everything right but I still can't get my audio files to play.

[Dapper Dan]

Are you using XMMS? If so, I think you may be needing the Xmms-Mp3 plugin.

[bearcat]

I'm using Rhythm Box 0.8.3. Is there an mp3 plugin for that?

[Dapper Dan]

Then I'm afraid you're on your own.

You might like it, but I think Rhythmbox is a headache!
Give XMMS a try though. It's the same as the "audioplayer" in your menu. Or open a terminal and go...

xmms [enter]

There are lots of plugins to configure XMMS. I think it is the best of them all.

[bearcat]

That command didn't work. I don't think I have XMMS.

Could someone give me a link to the installer and some instrctions for the install?

[Dapper Dan]

See below...




[Edited by Dapper Dan on 2004-07-10 21:35:27]

[Dapper Dan]

I can't remember, are you using Core 1 or 2?

First, look under Sound and video in you menu. If it's not there listed as "Audio Player", you should be able to install it with:

system-congfig-packages [enter]

as root.

Look under "Sound and Video."

and check xmms and xmms-skins.

You want to learn about apt-get any time soon? It will make installing packages MUCH easier for you.

[bearcat]

I have core 2.

Installing packages much easier?!? I'm interested.

[Dapper Dan]

I'll start a new thread..