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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.ysu.edu!odin.oar.net!malgudi.oar.net!hyperion.wright.edu!echoes.wittenberg.edu!bob.wittenberg.edu!mandrews From: mandrews@bob.Wittenberg.EDU (Mike Andrews) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: FreeBSD has no support for ethernet cards Date: 30 Jul 96 03:41:20 GMT Organization: Wittenberg University, Springfield OH Lines: 36 Message-ID: <mandrews.838698080@bob.wittenberg.edu> References: <31FA8D63.38928091@intercom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: bob.wittenberg.edu X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #8 (NOV) dws <dws@intercom.com> writes: >We just got some Intel boxes at a great price for the office, and at the urging of a FreeBSD >developer, we put FreeBSD on one of the machines. However, I have put 3 ethernet cards in and >none of them have worked. I know this is a FreeBSD problem because I have seen discussions of >how one of the cards was not supported in the freebsd mailing list, or at least, many people were >not getting it to work. >The cards I have are an >Intel EtherExpress PRO/100 LAN Adapter PCI (no support) >Trendnet 16-bit TE-16 Xpress (NE-2000 compatible) (no support) >and a 3com Etherlink III 3C5098-TP rev. A Uh... you DID read the HARDWARE.TXT file, didn't you? I don't have any experience with the Intel EtherExpress, but I've used a buttload of NE2000 clones, 3c509's, an SMC Ultra and even some 3c503's. The NE2000's, by default, only work at IRQ 5, at either 0x280 or 0x300 for an IO address. If you can't set your card this way, recompile a kernel with a different setting, or boot with the "-c" flag to jump into the kernel config menu (again, read HARDWARE.TXT). Granted my NE2000 clones aren't "trendnet" but they're a pretty cheap variety (ethernet address starts with 00-40-05 but under quite a few unheard of brand names...) The 3c509 driver was pretty buggy (doing exactly what you said -- works for a while and hangs) but the current FreeBSD 2.1.5-RELEASE driver seems solid. This is the only network card I've ever had any problems with -- short of having to add the flag "link2" to ifconfig to get it to use the AUI port instead of the 10baseT port on 3c503-TP cards. Perhaps the card is set to the wrong media type? -- -- Mike Andrews - mandrews@wittenberg.edu, mandrews@termfrost.org (NeXT) -- Programmer/Analyst, systems/mail/web/netnews guy, Wittenberg University -- http://www.termfrost.org/~mandrews/ "why..."