OT - Any Linux Geeks Here? (network troubles)

[Ed Kolis]

Maybe I'd have better luck with this at the Dom2 forum, but this place seems a bit more friendly for OT Queries

So, any Linux geeks here? I've been trying to install Linux on my laptop dual-boot with Windows XP, and I've tried Debian and Fedora Core, both the stable and the testing releases, and with none of them can I get my wireless or ethernet card to work! The OS's can usually see it in the install process (except the old stable Version of Debian, since it runs a 2.2 kernel), but then they can't actually do anything with it - the configuration hangs at the "determining IP address" stage. I tried setting my IP address via DHCP and setting it manually to a static value I configured via my wireless router, but the closest I've got is that under Fedora Core 1, I can activate my wireless card if I fiddle with the "/etc/pcmcia/network" file (at least I think that's the one, it's the one that lists all the available adapters and their bindings to drivers that I needed to fool with) and set the IP address and netmask manually (which is odd because DHCP works for me under Windows), but it only succeeds in drastically slowing down all but the simplest operations on my machine while Linux is running; I can't actually access the Internet. I have a Dell Latitude C610 laptop with a "3Com 3C920 Integrated Fast Ethernet Controller (3C905TX Compatible)" and a "Dell TrueMobile 1150 Series Mini PCI Card", which I've read is really an Orinoco card in disguise... the thing is, most of the people who have posted reports on using this card say it just works right out of the box, so any help would be appreciated!

[narf poit chez BOOM]

BREATH, Ed, BREATH!!

(paragraphs)

[ March 20, 2004, 04:51: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Aiken]

Though, in fact, I'm not a linux geek:
http://rajsingh.org/techtools/laptop_redhat_dell.html (not that good);
http://web.mit.edu/release/www/dell-laptop-lore.html (think this is the solution);
http://www.tkrat.org/c610/ (might be helpfull as well)

[ March 20, 2004, 18:25: Message edited by: aiken ]

[Ed Kolis]

Thanks... I THOUGHT something was fishy when Linux tried to initialize my network cards before it initialized PCMCIA, given that I have a PCMCIA network card... now to see if that trick in the second page you showed me actually works!