Problem with the whole tulip idea

[Robert G. Brown]

On Wed, 24 Feb 1999, Brady Eidson wrote:

> I have direct access to the internet via an ethernet connection, and my
> card is a card which falls under the Tulip driver category.  I've tried
> a number of different distributions and have got the startup floppies
> for most of the major releases.  The problem is that, unless I totally
> am missing something very obviously, I can't install Linux without my
> ethernet working because I'm going to it FTP direct, but I can't get the
> ethernet without a tulip driver, and I can't get the tulip driver
> installed till I have the Linux kernal running.
> 
> How can I do this all?

Ahh, a vicious circle.

The very simplest way is to buy a linux CD -- I've seen Red Hat 5.2 for
sale in stores around here for only $30 or so, and lots of linux books
these days come with a CD with all of Slackware and/or Debian and/or RH
and/or... stuck in the back.  Install from CD, build a kernel if
necessary, upgrade if necessary.

Will it be necessary?  Don't know.  You say your card is "in the tulip
category", but is it a genuine tulip (Digital 21141)?  A Linksys
(lite-on tulip clone)?  An Intel tulip (21143)?  If it isn't a genuine
tulip (of the sort that says Digital 21140 on the chip in the middle of
the card) it is quite possible that it needs a very recent release of
the driver to work.  In that case, you'll need to put a very recent
version of the driver code on a floppy and make a kernel (or module)
that uses the new driver revision.

You could also try to get somebody to build you a boot/root floppy set
with a kernel that will run your network card.  How that works, however,
depends on what distribution you plan to install over the network.  I
could easily enough put a kernel that ought to boot your system where
you can find it and download it, but that won't necessarily get your
install root floppy to work with the boot floppy.

   rgb

Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb@phy.duke.edu