Mark,

I recently re-installed Red Hat 6.1 on my laptop and had several problems
with networking. (Note: 6.2 did not have any of the same problems)  Some of
the issues stem from the fact that my network card is PCMCIA.  When the boot
process tries to initiate eth0 it fails.  Then later in the boot script it
will initiate PCMCIA that will pick up and configure the network card.

I can't remember where I read this, but somewhere it told me that when using
PCMCIA and linuxconfig you should not put in anything for the Kernel module,
I/O or .  PCMCIA will probe your card and try to figure out what it is for
you.  A very nice feature when it works.  Unfortunately it doesn't work
quite right during boot up for me.  I have to run "cardctl eject" and
"cardctl insert" to re-initialize my network card (Red Hat 6.2 did not have
this problem with the same laptop and network card).  It might have to do
with the fact that it's a 10/100 card running on a 10-bit network.

I found most of my information in the PCMCIA How-To, but there are a couple
of other sites that might have answers to your questions.  I found a good
one for my Toshiba that addressed specific problems for my hardware through
www.google.com.

Hope this helps.

Mark Holbert
mark@linuxsoftware.org

>
> -----Original Message-----
> I have installed (several times!) Redhat 6.1 on my Dell Inspiron 3000
laptop
> from a CD.
>
> The installation proceeds without a problem, and linux comes up just fine.
> It even auto-recognizes my network card - 3Com 3C589D (eth0). I can log in
> and poke around, start Gnome and try to configure the network. Now, as I
try
> to configure the network I run into problems.
>
> I can configure the interface eth0 (192.168.0.154), setup the host name
> (dell_linux) and add a second host (192.168.0.145). If I do not add an
entry
> for dell_linux to the list of hosts, the machine reboots with one error
> during boot from http server that it cannot resolve the host name. Gnome
> (and X) start, but I get an error from X that says it cannot resolve the
> host name dell_linux. I can ping the other host, and even surf the web.
>
> Now, if I add dell_linux to the list of hosts, the machine will not
reboot.
> It hangs in the boot process when it tries to enable(?) sendmail.
>
> My kernel is 2.2.5.-15 (I think - I am reinstalling it again so I can't
> check right now.....ah the joy of it all).
>
> Any and all suggestions will be greatly appreciated!!
>
> Thanks!
>
> Mark
>