[GLLUG] New Network Card

Brian Hoort hoortbri@msu.edu
Mon, 10 Jun 2002 14:39:24 -0400


If a person doesn't want to run custom kernels, is it possible to just use 
modules provided by the Debian distribution? In other words, if I was 
running the stock kernel, I could just install pcmcia-cs and the module for 
my NIC, reboot and be up and running, rather than having to get the source, 
apply the patch to the kernel, etc.? Or is it likely that on a laptop I'll 
have to compile my own kernel anyhow?

How many of you are running custom compiled kernels vs. stock distro ones?

Thanks!

At 05:29 PM 6/6/2002, you wrote:
>On Thursday 06 June 2002 17:01, after a long battle with technology,
>Brian Hoort wrote:
> > I have purchased a Xircom Realport NIC for my laptop. My laptop
> > currently has stable installed. How do I determine whether it has
> > drivers for my card?
>
>Plug the card in.  2 high beeps == "card works."  1 high beep and 1 low
>beep == "card won't work."  PCMCIA is great for that sort of thing.
>
>If it doesn't work, the easiest thing to do is upgrade the pcmcia-cs
>package.  If you're running a custom kernel, get the pcmcia-cs source
>from http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ and build the package according
>to standard procedure.  The site mentioned there contains a forum that
>has lots of helpful advice, and comp.os.linux.portable is also a good
>place to go.  David Hinds (pcmcia-cs maintainer) hangs out on both
>places and is pretty helpful/polite.
>
>The long-term best thing to do is probably to upgrade to Debian
>"unstable" since "stable" is still using really old versions of most
>software packages, and modern hardware has a far better chance of being
>supported with recent kernels and recent X builds.