Dual Networking Cards

[desertViking]

Hi,

I am retrofitting an older PC with FC4 and some new hardware. It's my first experience with Linux and it's a blast so far.

I have many questions, but will start here and learn from those with more experience.

Two ethernet cards have been installed. Looking at the BIOS, one card is recognized at IRQ9, and the other at 11. The BIOS recognizes both.

They are both from the same manufacturer, Netgear. One is a standard controller, and the other a wireless WG311 card.

The OS boots and is quite happy with my hardwire controller, but does not recognize the second card, the wireless card. This is found to be true using the hardware browsing tool in GNOME.

I think I must solve this before I can go any further with issues of driver installation.

Any advice?

Thx in advance.

[Furball]

Your wireless network card has to be set up first. But don't fear, it should be supported.
Search the forum for "ndiswrapper" and you should get what you're looking for.
For example have a look at this thread:
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/...ht=ndiswrapper
Have also a look at the supported hardware site:
http://www.linuxcompatible.org/cdetail11290.html
This should get you started.

[desertViking]

Thank-you! I will try your advice tonight and let you know if I am succesful. I gather that ndiswrapper must be compiled for my kernel. This is something I have not done before, so wish me luck.

desertViking

[desertViking]

Hi again,

Ok, I got as far as being able to build and load the ndiswrapper and drivers for the device. When I boot, or when I go to the system network settings, it says that the hardware does not appear to be present.

Also, there is no heartbeat on the device (read: power light).

Recall that there are two network cards here. Is there a possiblity that there is a hard coded IRQ or something keeping both cards from working at the same time?

Regards,

desertViking

[desertViking]

FYI, for those concerned, it appears that the problems lie with my motherboard and CPU. This old pc is equipped with an AMD K6. Apparently the WG311 (at least according to the box) requires a PIII compatible mother board and processor. It probably has more to do with the PCI slot since it specifically calls out the PCI 2.2 flavor.

The directions shown above worked well (Thx furball...)

Thinking that there just might be an unarbitrated IRQ contention, I removed the hardwired card, there was still no life in the ndiswrapper attached device.

I have disabled the, uh hem, successfully compiled and installed ndiswrapper for the moment. Moving on to the next hurdle.

If anyone thinks I've misdiagnosed the problem, please let me know. I'd enjoy getting it up and working.