I have another topic in this forum titled "Knoppix using NatSemi DP83815 stopped working". However, I now think I have enough information that this should be called to the attention of more users, so I'm posting under a title that will attract the attention of more users than those who know they use the NS DP83815 based NIC.

If you are a WinXP user and you have a NIC card or built-in nic that has an eeprom that holds configuration information (not all do), then you may have found that you can no longer connect to the network when you run Knoppix. I would be interested in any feedback from other users in these areas:

Do you also run WinXP, and if so have you downloaded the "security updates"?

Does Knoppix fail to connect to the network for you? Did it connect previously? What NIC (network interface) do you have and do you know if it contains EEPROM?

Did your connection stop working when you installed recent WinXP "security updates"?

From what I'm learning, if you have a NIC with EEPROM for configuration on it and have installed the WinXP "security updates" recently, you may no longer be able to connect to the network with Knoppix, although WinXP clearly overrides the new settings and connects fine.

There is a work-around for this. See the other thread for the details. Please post back any and all experiences; we need to track this down if it really is a case of the "security updates" breaking your computer so that it can no longer properly run Linux.

And if anyone has an XP system, and a nic with eeprom, and has not yet installed the security updates, it would be extremely helpful if you can determine the current EEPROM contents (tools at http://<a href="http://www.scyld.com...index.html</a> )and then install the "updates" and see what happens to your ability to connect to the network with Knoppix. (Keep the data before you run the "upgrade" and you will be able to reset the eeprom to it's correct values.)