Help needed in insalling NICs on FreeBSD UNIX

[offline]

I'm not looking for someone to hold my hand, I don't think people learn that way, but I need some pointers on installing 2 NICs on my unix box.

These are not plug and play,(haha).

I would like someone who has encountered this issue to give me some hints on which man pages to refer to, and experience they have had.

Thank you so much for your help!

[mairving]

The first thing that you need to do is determine if your NIC is supported. Most but not all are. Check here for supported NICS.

[Statica]

Do u have the compiled drivers? & kernel source?
this is the synopsis, if u post with ur NIC & driver the direction can be further narrowed down

Copy the drivers to /sys/pci
edit /sys/conf/files and add reference to your device driver
edit kernel config file like /sys/i386/conf/GENERIC and add line pointing to device
and reconfigure & recompile kernel

edit /etc/rc.conf to start up interface automatically

do a netconfig and add new hardware device.

Cheers

[Edited by Ex-Static-Cling on 02-05-2001 at 11:03 AM]

[offline]

You guys are great, I will post NICs and release version of the freeBSD later if I cant wiggle the drivers in.

[offline]

OK, I'm lost.

NIC cards are "CNet pro200(B)". These were being touted as "Unix compatable" by my girlfriend, who works at the store where I bought them,(for WAY too much). I find out as Im installing that these have instructions for sco-unix, and freebsd must be WILDLY different, as I have been dry-humping this installation for 2 hours now.

I have read lots of man pages, checked the online freebsd handbook, and cant find anything that makes sense.

The reason I'm doing this is to learn more about unix, but christ, this is a pretty steep learning curve. While I'm whining, somebody at work stole my "Begginers Guide to Unix" off my desk while I was at lunch yesterday. This bothers me for three reasons; 1. I can't read it and learn. 2. I hate theives. 3. Nobody I work with runs Unix, and the "L33T H4><0Rs" there run mandrake 7.2/redhat and whine about window's GUI dependant users.

I'm not going to cry, not yet, but I might drink heavily and ignore this problem for a while. Any help would be apreciated.

[offline]

OK, had an epiphany.

Im in vi at /usr/src/sys/i386/conf/GENERIC. Im ready to do something, but Im not sure what it is. I gues I need to configure the OS to allocate resources,(IRQ, ports, ect) to the NICS, but even as I type this I know that is a function of BIOS. Oh god, this is going from bad to worse.

If anybody here wants to AIM me my userid is ROOFLE.

[Statica]

did u try the linux install? SCO & BSD are entirely different beasts. The Cnet doesnt show up on the BSD hardware compatibility lists.
Doubt whether the drivers will work.

Basically you have to
- Copy the correct version of if_driverfile.c and if_driver.h for your system to /sys/pci.

- Edit /sys/conf/files and add a line that says:

pci/if_driver.c optional pn device-driver

- Edit your kernel config file (e.g. /sys/i386/conf/GENERIC) and add a line that says:

device device#



Did you try doing an ifconfig ? or netconfig?


At least post with the chipset and can try to help u out

[Edited by Ex-Static-Cling on 02-07-2001 at 10:26 PM]

[offline]

It's running on an old (cr)aptiva 100Mhz 586. It has 40megs of RAM.

[offline]

I give up.

This is the most counter-intuitive OS I have worked with. I'm way too ignorant on navigating unix to use this. I'm going to download mandrake 7.2 tonight, flatline the hard drive on the bsd box and install linux from a bootable cd.

Thanks for your help!

[Statica]

Earlier we'd see ppl who get "so sick of their nonworking Linux systems .. and load up Mickeysoft cos they like the friendliness etc" and its so refreshing that the attitude is changing when ppl go over to Linux for its ease of use

Offline, I can understand your frustrations with BSD, it isnt the same as Linux, but here's the problems, the NIC u are trying to work with seems to be very BSD unfriendly, no drivers. Basically even before you configure an ne2kpci NIC you at least need the chipset if not the exact drivers. What does kudzu report the chipset as?

and finally, Linux may be good and easy, but if you want a true robust server BSD is the way to go.