Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

Thanks for the info on where to get the DOS utility for the 3com 3c509.  
I will try that after we get the winbond ne card working.  Is there some
way to use network cards in DOS?  We have been using llpro to transfer BL2
ramdisk and then BL2 to transfer the hard drive BL2.

On this last computer BL2 started booting them complained midway through 
about initrd.  I had a second copy of zimage and baxlinux.gz on the 
computer and pointed loadlin at them (booted without boot.bat) and that 
worked.  Finally figured out, via scandisk, that the two files had landed 
on one of two small damaged areas of the drive.  A good reason to run 
scandisk before installing any files but we had been using this drive for 
DOS already.  So there are multiple reasons why linux might not boot.  
Scandisk tried to move the damaged files elsewhere but they stayed 
damaged.  Copying good over bad still gave bad.


On Tue, 11 May 2004, Robert Steinmetz wrote:

> Sindi Keesan wrote:
> 
> >Linux HOWTO says to us driver 3c509 and something about latency and not
> >enough buffer but the B version had more RAM onboard. 
> >
> I used to use a lot of these cards, they were very reliable and 3com has 
> a lifetime warranty, if you have one go bad you can sent it to them and 
> they will send you another one.
> 
> >Mine is version TP which is not mentioned.  I should use a DOS utility to 
> >disable PnP first,
> >then do a hard reset.
> >
> There were several versions of this card with different cable 
> connectors. Some early version did not have the RJ45 8 conductor cable. 
> Some had 3 connectors BNC AUI and TP (Twisted Pair - RJ45 ) some had 
> only the Twisted Pair ( RJ45 ) connector.
> 
> >The utility also lets me select 10baseT (RJ45),
> >10base2 (BNC) or AUI (the game port?) and this is not automatic.
> >
> It is automatic on at least some versions of the cards, but can be set 
> by the utility.
> 
> >I did not understand much of this and don't know where I would get a 
> >utility.
> >
> It is a DOS utility and can still be downloaded from 3com's website 
> www.3com.com, select support -> downloads -> 3c509. If not I'm sure it's 
> out there on the internet somewhere. Finally I could send it to you if 
> you can't find it anywhere else , but I would have to go find it and 
> make a zip file so it would probably have to wait until this weekend.
> 
>