RH9 PCMCIA NIC install on IBM Thinkpad

[JasonAllison]

Months ago I installed Debian Stable (Woody) on my thinkpad via drivers disks and COMPAQ 10/100 PC Card. The install was seemless w/ respect to reconizing my PCMCIA card and driver support.

I am in the process of installing RH9 via NFS to a local box. I am using the bootdisk.img, pcmciadd.img, and drvnet.img and cant get my NIC reconized. I thought I remembered reading I should pass thinkpad as a argument, but that does not work. I also pass 'dd' to the kernel, which only asks me to insert the driver disk prior to starting the install.

I am not sure RH even loads, or tries to load, any PCMCIA support since I dont hear the double beep I usually get when PCMCIA is loaded.

I have come across numerous sites discussing RH PCMCIA NICs not being supported, but no real insight into how to remedy it.

Any and all input appreciated,
JA

[Void Main]

I did an http install of RH9 on my Dell laptop with a LinkSys 10/100 PCMCIA card with no trouble. I do recall something different on RH9 from past releases of Red Hat (6.x, 7.x). Red Hat used to have a "bootnet" image where now they seem to have one image for all installation types called bootdisk.img plus the pmciadd.img and the drvnet.img for PCMCIA network cards as you have created. I have an older Dell laptop (P100) that I could do a network install on with Red Hat 6 but the 7/8/9 versions will not install on it. It won't detect my PCMCIA. Debian installed fine on it. I'll try and do some more digging later today on this... What model is you Thinkpad and what network card are you using?

Also, if you have Debian on it and have enough free disk space you could put the ISOs on your hard drive and do an HD install.

[JasonAllison]

I did an http install of RH9 on my Dell laptop with a LinkSys 10/100 PCMCIA card with no trouble. I do recall something different on RH9 from past releases of Red Hat (6.x, 7.x). Red Hat used to have a "bootnet" image where now they seem to have one image for all installation types called bootdisk.img plus the pmciadd.img and the drvnet.img for PCMCIA network cards as you have created. I have an older Dell laptop (P100) that I could do a network install on with Red Hat 6 but the 7/8/9 versions will not install on it. It won't detect my PCMCIA. Debian installed fine on it. I'll try and do some more digging later today on this... What model is you Thinkpad and what network card are you using?

Also, if you have Debian on it and have enough free disk space you could put the ISOs on your hard drive and do an HD install.

Thinkpad 390E (P120).

I am at work and unable to test these suggestions, but I printed some info from Bugzilla:

- Disable Cardbus support in BIOS.
- Check console messages: ALT-F2/F3

I need to double check, but I didnt find a bootnet.img in my images dir, only the drvnet.

Thanks,
JA

[Void Main]

You won't find a bootnet.img, that was what you had to use on the older RH installs. Also, I believe at the boot prompt you have to do a "linux expert" if I'm not mistaken. Seems like one of the boot help menus tells you what to do for a network install. I assume that you did this. As I mentioned, I'll dig into it more later this afternoon. Gotta go do 18 holes right now...

[Void Main]

Ok, I just created my bootdisks again and reran them on my laptop to refresh my memory on the network install.

I stuck the disk from the bootdisk.img in the drive and booted it. At the boot prompt I typed "linux askmethod". It asked how I wanted to install and I selected "http" (it had not started my PCMCIA network card yet at this point and you could have just as well selected "NFS"). The next thing it asked me is if I had a driver disk so I stuck the disk made from the pcmciadd.img in the drive and it then started my network and asked how I wanted to configure TCP/IP. I selected via DHCP but you could have set a static address. I assume you did not get this far.

Did you do a "linux askmethod" at the boot prompt of the first disk? If so how far did you get after that?

Here is a list of other boot options that may or may not help:
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linu ... topts.html

You might try adding some of the "no*" parameters:

e.g.
: linux askmethod noapic nousb skipddc

[JasonAllison]

Ok, I just created my bootdisks again and reran them on my laptop to refresh my memory on the network install.

I stuck the disk from the bootdisk.img in the drive and booted it. At the boot prompt I typed "linux askmethod". It asked how I wanted to install and I selected "http" (it had not started my PCMCIA network card yet at this point and you could have just as well selected "NFS"). The next thing it asked me is if I had a driver disk so I stuck the disk made from the pcmciadd.img in the drive and it then started my network and asked how I wanted to configure TCP/IP. I selected via DHCP but you could have set a static address. I assume you did not get this far.

Did you do a "linux askmethod" at the boot prompt of the first disk? If so how far did you get after that?

Here is a list of other boot options that may or may not help:
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linu ... topts.html

You might try adding some of the "no*" parameters:

e.g.
: linux askmethod noapic nousb skipddc

Worked way to late last night and did not get to -play-.

I tried linux dd and linux pcmcia (<-- dont think that works) and was prompted for a driver disk. Also, when I start a regualr install with only 'linux' and then select NFS as by method, it will also ask for a dd.

I am still persuming RH is not reconizing my PCMCIA bridge. At no point do I hear the 'double beep' informing me like other OSs do. My first step tonight (?) will be to watch the log messages, but I dont remeber seeing it. I think I will need to go into the BIOS to look for the CardBus support and disable. If I dont find that option (and it still looks like no reconizing PCMCIA bridge) I will have to start at square 1.

I will review the link posted, may have some questions.

Thanks again,
JA

[JasonAllison]

For whatever reason: linux expert

Asked for both PCMCIA and drvnet disks beforehand.

Go figure.