[luau] Installing packages

MonMotha monmotha at indy.rr.com
Sun Jun 16 21:42:01 PDT 2002


If you can figure out what chip the NIC is based on, it's possible that 
there's a driver already made for it that's distributed with the kernel. 
  It is generally said that if there's a driver in the kernel source, 
you should use it instead of the manufacturer's driver (as the kernel 
distributed ones are often more up to date and better maintained) unless 
you have problems.

For most recent normal PCI NetGear cards, the "natsemi" module is the 
driver ("modprobe natsemi" as root to see).  Also try tulip, and of 
course the venerable ne2k-pci (though if it's 100Mbit it won't be an 
NE2000).  /sbin/lspci might also yeild some additional information.

Unfortunately I think RH switched from 2.2.x to 2.4.x kernels in 7.0 to 
7.1 (can someone confirm this?), therefore the driver is unlikely to 
work as the module interfaces changed some.  Also, if the module is 
available in binary form only, you have about a snowball's chance in 
hell of getting it to load on a different minor kernel version (though 
sometimes you can load them up on different patchlevels).  New kernels 
also include taiting and GPL enforcement which might mean that an older 
module may refuse to load on newer kernels due to GPL issues (of course 
this is hackable if you're really into kernel hacking...).

--MonMotha

Dan George wrote:
> Hi Gang
>               Have a problem installing driver for my netgear NIC on my Sony
> Vaio Laptop. I installed 7.1  but no drivers available except for 7.0.  Will
> those work for 7.1 on my Laptop if I update it?  How do I get those drivers
> off the CD to the etc file that has all the drivers? Im just a basic user
> (just took my first Linux class) but really would like to get this PCM card
> rolling. What other card would you recommend that works with Linux?  Also
> have a copy of 7.2 that the Sony LPT wouldnt recognize on boot.  The startup
> disk I have for 7.0 wouldnt work for 7.2 but did work for 7.1, why?
> 
> Thanks
> Dan
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Warren Togami" <warren at togami.com>
> To: <luau at videl.ics.hawaii.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, June 15, 2002 6:27 PM
> Subject: Re: [luau] Installing packages
> 
> 
> 
>>The equivalent of Cooker in Red Hat is Rawhide, and no, up2date does only
>>official packages + updates.
>>
>>Cooker or Rawhide will have difficulty installing onto the latest stable
>>release because often packages require MANY other updates.  It is also
> 
> often
> 
>>not a good idea to upgrade unless you really know what you are doing,
>>because many of those packages especially in Gnome2 or KDE3.1 are very
>>unstable.
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Rodney Kanno" <pepe65 at hawaii.rr.com>
>>To: "Luau Mailing List" <luau at videl.ics.hawaii.edu>
>>Sent: Saturday, June 15, 2002 5:27 PM
>>Subject: Re: [luau] Installing packages
>>
>>
>>
>>>Does it do the newest packages? (ie. equivalent to Mandrake cooker
>>>packages)? Or is it better to stick with te packages only available on
>>>up2date?
>>>
>>>
>>>>If you are installing official Red Hat packages up2date at the command
>>>
>>line
>>
>>>>never fails.  You need to be registered and entitled with RHN, but you
>>>
>>get
>>
>>>>one free machine entitlement so that's usually okay.
>>>
>>
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>>LUAU at videl.ics.hawaii.edu
>>http://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/mailman/listinfo/luau
> 
> 
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