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  1. #1
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    Default Linux how can I instal a PCI network card

    I was hit by lightning it damaged modem (replaced) but ethernet still didn't work. so I put in a PCI network card opensuse 12.3 knows it is there but can't get it to use it. The old card says firmware missing but I think the new card uses the same?
    PS I don't know a lot

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  3. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by glenn k View Post
    I was hit by lightning it damaged modem (replaced) but ethernet still didn't work. so I put in a PCI network card opensuse 12.3 knows it is there but can't get it to use it. The old card says firmware missing but I think the new card uses the same?
    PS I don't know a lot
    Glen,

    The majority of my Linux experience is with Debian, and a few other Debian distros including Ubuntu and Mint. I did use SUSE on a bunch of Servers a few years ago (for about 12 months during a contract Sys Admin job), so I have some relevant experience.

    The first thing I'll confirm is that you are talking about an ethernet network card for a wired network, and not a WIFI network card. We'll assume from the wording of your post that you are referring to a wired network card, and not a WIFI card.

    Was the old network card was built in to the Motherboard, or was it also a PCI Card ? If the old network card was integrated into the motherboard, then you need to go into the BIOS and disable the old no longer working built-in network interface on the motherboard. Linux may then be able to find the new PCI network card.

    Linux has for nearly two decades been pretty much "plug & play" for the large majority of hardware, and PCI Network Cards are high on the list of hardware that works. The exception to that rule is if the new network card is a new design chipset for which the drivers have not yet been released in the Linux Kernel. My new Asus (Broadcom) 802.11AC wifi card is in that boat, but should be fully supported within a few months. Even though your new network card may have the same brand of chipset as your old one, the new card may still need a newer version of the driver which may not be included in the version of the Linux Kernel that you're currently using.

    There are a few command line based techniques for diagnosing the status of the network card, identifying why the card isn't working, and to fix it, but these commands are complex, and potentially damaging in the wrong hands. Also, I don't currently have OpenSUSE installed on any of my computers, so I wouldn't be able to test any of the commands before I send them to you. So, I suggest the following much easier and safer way of working out what is wrong, and potentially leading to a suitable fix for the problem.

    As you're an OpenSUSE user, I recommend downloading the ISO file for the latest version of OpenSUSE which is OpenSUSE 13.2. I'm assuming that as you're currently able to post on this forum, that you've got internet access via some other computer. I've recommended the latest version of OpenSUSE just in case your problems are caused by a lack of a suitable kernel driver in your current version of OpenSUSE 12.3.

    The following is the link to the OpenSUSE download page: http://software.opensuse.org/132/en

    Pick the appropriate computer architecture ..... 32 bit or 64 bit. Select the download method - BitTorrent if you've got a Torrent Client installed (because BitTorrent ensures that the big download arrives without any errors), otherwise "Direct" download is the next easiest, but not as reliable for such a large download. Do not select the "Network" download option as this will not work in your case with a dodgy network interface card.

    As you probably already know, you can boot and install Linux from either an ISO file written to a USB Stick, or a DVD. Follow the OpenSUSE instructions for writing the ISO file to your chosen boot media (USB or DVD).

    Now boot the dodgy computer using the OpenSUSE USB or DVD. Remember, on some computers you may need to press F8 to select a boot device other than the normal Hard Drive, or you may need to go into the BIOS to temporarily tell the BIOS to boot from the USB or DVD.

    OpenSUSE, like many other Linux Distros, can opt to boot in what is known as "Live CD Mode". Most Linux install CDs, DVDs, and USB Sticks, on bootup will either give the option to boot to live mode, or may default to live mode. You want to boot into Live Mode so that the data on your Hard Drive is not touched by this process.

    If the computer boots up successfully in Live Mode to a normal OpenSUSE desktop, and the network interface comes alive, then you now know one way of fixing your problem, and that way is to upgrade your computer to the latest version of OpenSUSE. If you decide to upgrade the version of OpenSUSE installed on your hard drive, you'll have to get onto the OpenSUSE web site and do plenty of research to make sure you know how to do the upgrade whilst retaining the data contained in your home directory, and any other data that you might have stored on the hard drive outside of your home directory. If you've got an external hard drive, I'd strongly recommend doing a backup of your data (usually just your home directory, unless you've intentionally stored some data elsewhere) before you start.

    When you run the OpenSUSE upgrade, the current OpenSUSE configuration on your hard drive will be overwritten completely. That process should leave you with a working network card, and if you've chosen your upgrade method correctly, then all of your data in your home directory should still be there, provided that you don't change your user name guring the upgrade. However, if you've lost your data during the upgrade, then you'll need to restore the data from your external backup.

    If upgrading OpenSUSE is not something you can or want to do, then to fix this network card problem you will have to resort to a fair bit of command line work. If that is the solution you choose, I recommend that you research the problem on the OpenSUSE Wiki https://en.opensuse.org/Main_Page. If it was me, I'd be upgrading OpenSUSE to fix teh problem so that I had the latest version installed, as that will offer more advantages beside fixing the network card problem.

    Hope that info help.

    Regards,

    Roy
    Manufacturer of the Finest Quality Off-Cuts.

  4. #3
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    Can you tell us the make/model of the new n/w card?
    I may be weird, but I'm saving up to become eccentric.

    - Andy Mc

  5. #4
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    The card is a Gigabit PCI network adapter TG-3269
    I downloaded opensuse 13.2 on my windows 7 lap top and could not put 4.4MB on a 8MB stick so used a portable drive then burnt a DVD on my desk top. I set BIOS to open with cd drive 1st, portable CD second, then Hard disk. Computer opened in 12.3 but DVD did run a few times. I wish I new a bit more about computers this has taken me days and still no better off except I now know a lot more than I did. I was even trying to upgrade to 13.2 but not sure how. I have backed up everything up to a different drive in computer and a portable drive just in case. I do have a CD that came with the card it has a driver for Linux I could not work out how to use this I did try some things in root I hope I didn't bugga things up.

  6. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by glenn k View Post
    The card is a Gigabit PCI network adapter TG-3269
    I downloaded opensuse 13.2 on my windows 7 lap top and could not put 4.4MB on a 8MB stick so used a portable drive then burnt a DVD on my desk top. I set BIOS to open with cd drive 1st, portable CD second, then Hard disk. Computer opened in 12.3 but DVD did run a few times. I wish I new a bit more about computers this has taken me days and still no better off except I now know a lot more than I did. I was even trying to upgrade to 13.2 but not sure how. I have backed up everything up to a different drive in computer and a portable drive just in case. I do have a CD that came with the card it has a driver for Linux I could not work out how to use this I did try some things in root I hope I didn't bugga things up.
    Glenn,

    I've been doing some trawling on the OpenSUSE Forums and see that you've received some support from that site as well. The approach that person was taking involved some very detailed command line work, and if you was copying and re-typing those commands from another computer into the OpenSUSE system, then there was plenty of opportunity for errors to creep in. The attempt to compile and install the vendor's own generic Linux driver may (potentially) have also done some damage. The generic Linux drivers supplied by vendor are really targeted at developers who will need to customise the source code supplied by the vendor in order to make the driver work on each particular flavour of Linux. Those developers then roll their customised driver into their distro so that you get transparent support.

    I think that the cleanest and quickest way of proceeding, especially as you say you have recent backups of your data, would be to do a clean install, and then to copy your data back into the newly created home directory structure.

    In a previous post you mention that you've already downloaded the ISO file for latest version version of OpenSUSE. You also mention that you couldn't get the computer to boot from the DVD, despite doing what should be done in the BIOS. I suspect that the reason it did not work is probably that the computer is not recognising the DVD as being "bootable". To make a bootable DVD, you need to burn the ISO file to the DVD in a particular way. Simplying burning/copying the file to teh DVD doesn't work!

    Follow the instructions under the heading Burn the ISO image at the following link on the OpenSUSE web site: https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Download...O_image.28s.29

    As you can see from the OpenSUSE web site, you can burn the ISO image to DVD on either a Linux, Windows, or Mac OSX computer. The easiest option for you is to do it on your OpenSUSE Computer. Under the Heading "Burn the ISO image(s)Using Linux" you are provided with a command line way of burning the ISO image to a blank DVD. Under Linux, instead of the command line, you can also use a Graphical User Interface (GUI) application such as K3B or Brassero to burn the ISO file .... one of those applications is often installed by default in most Desktop Linux Distributions. If you have one of them installed, use it to burn the ISO file to DVD - select the option that says something like "Burn ISO Image" or similar wording. Otherwise, use the single command line included on the OpenSUSE page to burn the ISO image to the blank DVD. If you choose to use a Windows computer to burn the ISO file to teh DVD, then I'm told that it works, but I have no experience doing it that way.

    CAUTION: The following process will overwrite everything on the hard disk that you currently have OpenSUSE installed on. Make sure that you have done your data backups first, and make doubly sure that you can successfully read the files on the backups before proceeding.

    IMPORTANT NOTEs:


    1. As you have one of your backups copied onto a spare hard drive on the same computer, it would be safest to physically unplug that backup hard drive while you are doing the install to avoid any possibility of selecting the wrong hard drive and accidentally overwriting your backup. Also ensure that any external hard drives are unplugged when doing the installation.
    2. Ensure that your network cable is plugged in before starting this process. With the computer running, ensure that you have a link light (a small usually green or yellow LED) glowing on the back of the network card, and on or near the relevant port number on the switch/hub/router that the other end of the network cable is plugged into. If you've got link lights glowing at both ends of the network cable, then you know that you have a sound network cable and a physical network connection. If you do not have a link light at the computer end of the network cable, I'd immediately suspect the network cable might be faulty. If you lack a link light at the switch/hub/router end, I'd try plugging the cable into a different port on the switch/hub/router, as the lightning may have damaged the switch/hub/router as well. No link lights at all suggests that the lightening did more damage that originally thought - unlikely.


    Once you have the ISO image burned correctly to DVD, then re-boot your computer and boot off the DVD. You may need to change the BIOS settings again if they were not saved permanently last time.

    If all has gone well, you should see the computer Boot from the DVD, and an OpenSUSE Installation Menu should appear.

    From that menu, select the "Install" option ........ and all should be well with the world. During the installation of OpenSUSE, when asked to enter a User Name. If possible, use the same User Name as you used under the old version of OpenSUSE. Using a different User Name is not a major problem. Using a different User Name simply means that you would have to do some additional command line repair work to correct the file and directory permissions on your data after you have restored your data to your home directory.

    As an observation from someone who has spent many years supporting novice Users during their initial introduction to Linux, I'd recommend against using OpenSUSE to start out. OpenSUSE has a reputation in the Linux community for being an excellent Linux Distribution for advanced users, and for small and medium sized businesses. OpenSUSE is not necessarily the best Linux distribution for a novice Linux User to start out on. The distribution most commonly recommended for novice Linux Users is Ubuntu. If you've already gotten used to the KDE desktop in OpenSUSE, then using Kubuntu will give you the KDE desktop environment on Ubuntu foundations. Apart from being more user friendly for novice users, the initil download is just under 1 GByte, instead of OpenSUSE's 4.4 GBytes. Ubuntu's support infrastructure (Wikis, Forums, etc) are structured toward supporting novices, and they have codes of conduct for Forum respondents that encourages forum respondents to provide novice friendly responses.

    If you decide to try Ubuntu or Kubuntu, the following are the links to download an ISO. The pages that I've linked to also include links to instructions for creating the bootable USB or DVD, and other installation related stuff.

    For vanilla Ubuntu (which uses the Unity Desktop which you are probably not familiar with: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

    For Kubuntu: http://www.kubuntu.org/getkubuntu

    In each case, if given the option, choose the 14.10 version. In the case of Kubuntu, choose the "Kubuntu 14.10 Plasma 4 — Latest Release, Stable and Supported" version. Not the Plasma 5 Preview version !

    Hope those instructions go well for you. PM me if you need further guidance.

    Regards,

    Roy
    Manufacturer of the Finest Quality Off-Cuts.

  7. #6
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    I have no idea what happened, I have started my desk top many times as it turns the modem on, I started the desk top today with the DVD with open suse 13.2 still in the drive it started as usual then the DVD drive fired up for a while then I was online. I had a look in YaST and it only sees the new card now.

  8. #7
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    After a long time of pulling wires out of modem and re starting to get it to work I bought a second card and no problems. My second card was faulty from new.

  9. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by glenn k View Post
    I was hit by lightning it damaged modem (replaced) but ethernet still didn't work. so I put in a PCI network card opensuse 12.3 knows it is there but can't get it to use it. The old card says firmware missing but I think the new card uses the same?
    PS I don't know a lot
    The best way is to get a usb to ethernet adaptor the firmware (driver) is built into the kernel. It will give you the connectivity to then get the required kernel patch for your ethernet pci card.


    Cary

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