I have just installed Mandrake Linux 9 on an older system of mine and everything went smooth, but I'm try to set up the linux box to work on my network so I can access the internet with it but it is just not working. I'm running an XP box on the same router but on the linux box the eth0 is always in the down status (I'm sure thats my problem). I checked the MandrakeLinux site and the network card..which is a realtek RTL-8139..and the site said I was known to work..yet it does not.

Any suggestions?

Also, my router shows that there is a connection so it is sending a signal to the router.

post the results of 'ifconfig'

and 'lsmod' and check if there is a module '8139too' loaded.

post the contents of '/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0'

ifconfig gives:

Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:58 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:58 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:4060 (3.9 Kb) TX bytes:4060 (3.9 Kb)


Yes there is a 8139too under lsmod

the contents of /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 are:

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
IPADDR=192.168.1.101
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.1.0
BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
ONBOOT=yes


Is there a config problem on my part?

Your ifconfig display looks like its only detecting loopback... Anyway, it will help a lot if you can copy the exact output generated by ifconfig.

And... you might want to try ifconfig eth0 up...

When I try ifconfig eth0 up it says that the "Device or resource busy"

and that is the exact output of ifconfig

Try this:

ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.101 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

You don't need to use dhcp and then set a static address.

after I type in the command I get this:

SIOCSIFFLAGS: Device or resource busy
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Device or resource busy

Should I try a new NIC?

It might be a module problem and / or IRQ resource conflict etc.

Look at the output of dmesg and see what it says for the ethernet card.

dmesg for eth0 gives:

eth0: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet at 0xcc847000, 00:e0:4c:00:0d:fd, IRQ 0

eth0: Identified 8139 chip type 'RTL-8139b'

should the IRQ be 0?

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
IPADDR=192.168.1.101
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.1.0
BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
ONBOOT=yes


--------------------------------------------------


change the second line to

BOOTPROTO=static


and do a '/etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart'

and then see the output of 'ifconfig'

Same as before but the RX and TX packets changes from 58 to 126 and the RX and TX bytes changed from 4060 to 9206

and still fails to bring up eth0

I know the card works because I was just testing Windows server 2003 and it worked fine.

I just encountered this same kind (I think) of issue when I started playing with Mandrake's 9.1 release.
Check in yourBIOS and see if you have a setting for APCI. If so, disable it. It does something with the allocation of your PCI bus. I can run WinXP with it on, but when I boot to Linux, I have to go in and disable it.
I could not get either my onboard NIC (it's a Realtek as well) or a PCI NIC to work until I found out about that, even though in Windows they work just fine.
Hope this helps.


JF

You also might try disabling plug and play in the BIOS

I don't have a APCI setting or anywhere to disable PnP (which is weird)

WHOA.....When I was in the BIOS looking for those setting I noticed that the set OS was Win98/WinNT...I changed it to other and my NIC is up and I'm online!!! Sweet

Thanks to everyone for their help