[buug] Re: ethernet config problems

Rick Moen rick at linuxmafia.com
Thu May 2 12:41:28 PDT 2002


Quoting Jerry Cheung (jrcow97 at yahoo.com):

> This sounds like a good possibility. I found the ultility and I'll try
> it out tonight.  After disabling PnP, how would linux recognize the
> ISA?  Would it detect at boot?

You bet.  I've used lots of 3C509b cards with Linux, this way.
They're great old cards.  

The original 3C509 had more chips and no PnP rubbish -- just
CMOS-adjustable IRQ and I/O settings, like the "b" replacement.
Either one is fine to use with Linux, if you have ISA slots and don't
need 100 Mbit.

ftp://ftp.3com.com/pub/NIC/3c509/

Somewhat annoyingly, I believe the current versions will install and
write out to blank floppies only from MS-Windows on a hard drive.  
Thereafter, however, they can be stored on *ix boxen as dd images.  
If 3Com had Clue One, they'd have done this for us.  (I may do it, one
day -- if I still care about ISA ethernet cards.)

For that matter, a Linux maintenance floppy with the open-source 
3c5x9utils programs would be really handy, too.

http://packages.debian.org/stable/net/3c5x9utils.html

That includes diag and setup utilities, but I have no idea if they
include the ability to toggle PnP.  Whereas, 3Com's 3C5X9CFG.EXE 
program for DOS does.

If you happen to try the Linux 3C5x9 utilities, please let me know if
you find out about that.





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