Category: Uncategorized

I got Apache running this morning before work, I had already installed but hadn’t figured out how to start it. In the end I found the command I needed in Running Linux (Matt Welsh, Matthias Kalle Dalheimer, Lar Kaufman -O’Reilly). I opened a shell with root permissions and typed the command:-

(location of httpd) -f (location of httpd.conf)
obviously replacing the (location of..) bracketted bits with the correct file paths

I haven’t changed any of the configuration settings yet – i’m using the default settings provided in the suse distribution, which (unlike windows) means most features are disabled by default, so you can enable them as required when you understand what they do, rather than scramble frantically around trying to lock potentially vulnerable things off which you don’t want or don’t need.

Next Project: Tomcat (for running JSP?)

Here is a screengrab of the default KDE 3 desktop showing “Kmail”, the KDE mail client and “everbuddy” an instant messaging client which supports several messaging protocols including msn messenger.

this is my first post via the newly working linux laptop (including network card!)… more later

You can pretty much ignore anything i’ve mentioned previously on this subject apart from the excellent pcmcia article I found, which led me in the right direction. To summarise, you need to know what the machine recognises your card as, then add a simple card description to a config file telling the machine which driver to use. As it turned out I didn’t even need to install a driver.

It was actually a lot easier than I thought:-

1. I logged in as root and looked in var/log/messages to find out what my card was recognised as:-

“PCMCIA Fast-Ethernet”
manfid 0xffff, 0x1090

2. I then looked in etc/pcmcia/config and noticed that there were already several ASIX 88190 based cards in there which were using an already present driver called axnet_cs

3. I added the follwing card desription to etc/pcmcia/config:-

card “PCMCIA Fast-Ethernet”
version “PCMCIA”, “Fast-Ethernet”
manfid 0xffff, 0x1090
bind “axnet_cs”

4. Rebooted, and noted the absence of the “low” beep which I had before which was telling me it couldn’t find a driver.

5. Fired up konquerer and hey presto, I was on the internet. Note that I had already previously configured my internet connection to use PCMCIA and DHCP with my broadband connection

I haven’t installed the driver yet, because i’m waiting for a rainy afternoon (plenty of those) when nothing else is going on (not so many of those). So don’t be misheartened that this project seems to be taking months – I only spend 20 minutes on it now and again – I have a job, house, wife, social life, washing up and a band to look after as well.

I was also holding back because it was bothering me that I don’t know what my card is recognised as and how linux would know to use the driver I intended to install. I then came across this article at linux orbit which has just renewed my enthusiasm, as it explains to me how I can find out what my card is recognised as (if at all). I now also understand that once I know this, I replace the “ASIX” stuff with whatever my card claims to be. It also re-emphasises the need to read the PCMCIA HOW-TO properly before starting.

so I now have a possible driver for my network card. It seems to be a compliation of various versions of files and requires me to install it from the command line. I also need to edit some of the references to directories and probably create some directories.

I also get the feeling that I am about to overwrite some files with earlier versions, so I need to back up.

to give you the idea here is the read me file which comes with driver. Note that this refers to earlier versions of files than I have on my system and it also instructs you to download some files which I already have as they were included in the gz file with the driver.

 AX88190 LINUX DRIVER INSTALL
 Note: this driver for linux 2.2.x

 1. copy driver to /asix
    # mcopy a:/* /asix
 
 2. download pcmcia-cs-3.1.8.tar.gz from hyper.stanford.edu
    read PCMCIA-HOWTO file & install it
 
    # mcopy pcmcia-cs-3.1.8.tar.gz /usr/src/linux
    # tar zxvf pcmcia-cs-3.1.8.tar.gz
    # cd /usr/src/linux/pcmcia-cs-3.1.8
    # make config
    # make all; make install

 3. add the following lines into /etc/pcmcia/config
    card “ASIX AX88190 Based Fast Ethernet PCMCIA Card”
    version “ASIX”, “AX88190”
    bind “pcnet_cs”

    * ASIX: Manufacture ID in CIS
    * AX88190: Product ID in CIS

 4. you can copy pcnet_cs.c from /usr/src/pcmcia-cs-3.1.8/clients/ to /
 
 5. please check pcnet_cs.c has the following lines:
    static hw_info_t hw_info[]={
                .
                .
     { /* ASIX AX88190 */ 0x0400, 0x88, 0x19, 0x00, 0 },
                .
                .
     }
  
     PS.0x0400 : The Node Address location
        0x88, 0x19, 0x00 : Node Address

 6.# cd /asix
   # chmod +x gen1 gen2
  
 7.# gen1
   # gen2
 
 8.# reboot

I am also still not sure whether any of the settings like “Node Address Location” will need manually editing or not.

As you can see I have no confidence whatsoever that what I am about to do will work or not!

Despite what you read below it is actually today that this log went live – the rest just went live on my development server. Hence all that was written before had a readership of one, and as I show blatant favouritism for my own work, I didn’t criticise myself even once. Ignorance is bliss eh?

I guess that will change now….

A colleague had the version 8.0 disks so I thought I would upgrade. Because I hadn’t made many changes to the original install, I decided to completely overwrite that installation. First attempt I chose the wrong mouse driver (for the internal pad thing) and monitor settings – it was a mess. I logged into KDE and the cursor kept disappearing down to the bottom left of the screen. It also opened up everything it passed over. Thus I couldn’t get to anything to change the settings so I copped out and started the  whole installation from scratch, this time taking care to choose the correct mouse driver (for my logitech USB external mouse).

Now I have sound too! This is great, but obviously I haven’t learnt much in the process. Oh well, theres still the PCMCIA network card and modem to go – apparently the winmodem is a pig to get working under linux.

having trouble getting the ethernet card working… mentor PCMLAN10/100

 

I have found some info here on mobilix, apparently the card uses a AX88190 chipset which has led me to a possible driver here on asix.com

ok, I just lost a massive entry I had to put here because of a bug/annoyance with the blogger I am building and using to write this log. I can’t be bothered to write it out in proper detail now, so here is a summary:-

I have three operating systems on the machine, win98, win2k and now suse Linux. After the succesful linux install I found I couldnt boot into win2k because the partition reference in boot.ini (in the root of the c drive was wrong, so I manually edited it and I can now boot into win2k.

I’ll write a bit more about how the boot process works with this set up later!