5.0.1 sees eth0 as wireless sometimes (but it isn't!)

[whil]

Hi folks,

Running 5.0.1 on a Fedora Core 5 Thinkpad T30 that has eth0 (Ethernet card, Intel EtherExpress/100) and eth1 (an Aironet wireless card.) I see these on the box when I boot natively into Fedora Core 5, so I'm pretty sure that eth0 is ETH and eth1 is wireless.

I run netcardcofnig on eth0 and plug in my static values. THEN it asks for wireless parameters. Huh? No matter what I do (empty parms, parms chock full o' data...), I can't connect to the network.

Over the past few days, I've been able to do 'something' to occasionally connect. But I can't repro the steps. I've tried all of the various scenarios I can think of, and it seems that writing the steps down ensures that the connection attempt will fail. Wouldn't ya just know it!

- ping 127.0.0.1 works fine.
- Configuring as DHCP gives me a "Failed" error after a few moments

If this NEVER worked, well, that'd be one thing.

Ideas on what I might try/look at?

Thanks,

Whil

[posmanet]

Its possible that the Knoppix Kernel puts eth0 and eth1 the other way round.

You can get some information about your network-cards by typing

ifconfig -v

...and with

lspci -v

you can get some information about all installed pci devices. Thus You can compare the Interrupts, or with only ifconfig check out the mac adresses to exactly identify which device is eth0 and which is eth1.

Or maybe You just give it a try to config eth1...

[whil]

DING DING DING!!!! We have a winnuh!

Even though I _know_ that eth0 is the Ethernet card, I gave it a shot as you suggested (eth0/eth1 the other way around) and darn tootin', I'm a surfing the web via the Knoppix-knowing eth1 interface.

Thanks!

Whil

[joshknape]

So Knoppix thinks eth0 is the wireless interface?

By the way, running Knoppix on a Fedora Core Thinkpad just sounded rather funny...

[posmanet]

Its an in-what-direction-does-the-system-adress-the-hardware-thing.

Just take a look in /var/log/messages after a reboot - there you can see how the first device found by the kernel is addressed as eth0, next one as eth1 and so on. Its possible, that detection routines change with the kernel- (and therefore driver-) version, and thus your cards may be adressed in another order than with Your older Linux system.

I think You can even affect this by swapping pci cards, if You want another order.

[whil]

>> what direction does the system...

Could very well be. I'm no hardware guy, so I was thinking that mebbe the BIOS or something else hard-wired determined which device was eth0 and so on. Didn't occur to me that mebbe the OS could decide.

>> running Knoppix on a Fedora Core Thinkpad

In hindsight, yeah, it does, doesn't it! I just needed a box to stick the K5 CD into, and that was the handiest that wasn't being used.

Whil