Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:21 am Post subject: [HELP] Installing D-link Driver onto Ubuntu
Hi there,
My brother is new to the linux world. Just a couple days ago, he's installed Ubuntu into his old computer which used to run XP. With the system requirements getting higher and higher, and the amount of viruses attacking the PC world, he's decided to run on Linux.
I bought him a D-Link PCI network card. Before purchasing the card, i went online to see if they did have a driver for linux and indeed they did. So now, we have the PCI card installed and we are stuck on the driver installation part.
If you can help my brother on how to install software and drivers onto Linux, that would be much appreciated! Thanks for your time.
Marloon.
Last edited by marloon on Mon Apr 23, 2007 12:59 am; edited 1 time in total
My brother is new to the linux world. Just a couple days ago, he's installed Ubuntu into his old computer which used to run XP. With the system requirements getting higher and higher, and the amount of viruses attacking the PC world, he's decided to run on Linux.
I bought him a D-Link PCI network card. Before purchasing the card, i went online to see if they did have a driver for linux and indeed they did. So now, we have the PCI card installed and we are stuck on the driver installation part.
If you can help my brother on how to install software and drivers onto Linux, that would be much appreciated! Thanks for your time.
Marloon.
Have you tried just physically installing the card and configuring the network interface? The command "lspci" run from a Gnome terminal will tell you whether or not your system is seeing the card. So much hardware is supported out-of-the-box now that it's actually fairly rare to run across a NIC that isn't supported by default. Wireless is another story altogether, but NIC's are covered pretty well. Most NIC's are usable without installing the drivers as the drivers are included in the kernel. (In Linux, drivers are kernel modules.)
What is the model number of the card are you using? Can you give a link to the driver? What version of Ubuntu are you using?
Just a suggestion here..... Anytime you need help you need to give the relevant information about the problem you are having such as model numbers for hardware, version of the OS you're using, links to things such as the driver in question, etc.... Without that type of information it's normally impossible to give specific help. It's sort of like calling a mechanic and saying "my Chevy won't run", but not telling him anything else about the problem. It's simply not enough information to work with.
Joined: Jul 7, 2003 Posts: 1267 Location: Boise, ID, USA
Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:29 pm Post subject:
I'm a little surprised that the NIC doesn't "just work". I have Ubuntu installed on two PCs and a laptop and the wired and WLAN NICs aren't an issue at all. As ffreeloader said, supported drivers are included in the Linux kernel.
If you are working with a Gnome desktop (and you probably are...otherwise, you'd be running Kubuntu), go to the toolbar at the top of the screen and click System > Administration > Networking.
At this point, you'll be prompted for your password. Type in the password and click OK.
When the Network Settings dialog box appears, click on the Connections tab.
Select Ethernet connection and click the Activate button.
Click on the Properties button.
Verify that the Enable this connection check box is checked.
In the Connection Settings area under Configuration, if you want to get an IP address dynamically, select DHCP. Otherwise, select Static IP address.
(If you select Static IP address, input the IP address, subnet mask and default gateway in the appropriate fields).
Click OK.
Click the DNS tab and verify that the correct IP addresses to your DNS servers are in the DNS Servers field (DHCP should do this for you).
If not, click the Add button and manually input the IP addresses.
Click OK.
Exit the dialog box.
That should do it unless the current Linux kernel doesn't natively support your NIC. If all of the above doesn't work, we'll need to discuss where you found the driver, how to download it to the Linux box (a neat trick if you found it on the Internet since the computer doesn't have a working NIC) and how to install it.
Ah.... Come on, Trip.... Show him the way a "real" linux user sets up networking.... Show him how to run ifconfig, edit /etc/network/interfaces, and use ifup and ifdown....
LOL. I have gotten so used to using the above tools I am getting to the point I really dislike using the wizards and allowing network-mangler to auto-configure things, err.... I mean network-manager. I've basically found that on any multi-homed, multi-gatewayed, machines that network-manager is worse than useless. It will set up interfaces the way it wants rather than the way you want, assign IP addresses and dns servers to the wrong interfaces, and with wireless really screw things up if you're using wpa_supplicant and roaming.
I know a lot of people really like the wizards, but the wizards and auto-configuration tools like network-manager just lock you into a whole different set of problems and if you then don't understand the command line tools you're helpless to do anything about it.
I'll buck the trend to wizards and stick with the old reliable command line tools. I left Windows behind because I found that Linux allows me to control my computer and tell it what to do and how to behave, and I'm not about to concede that control back to the gui again.
Joined: Jul 7, 2003 Posts: 1267 Location: Boise, ID, USA
Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:24 pm Post subject:
Hi Freddy. Hey, I'm just a padawan at this.
Actually, since Ubuntu is supposed to be the "desktop of the masses", I figured I'd just describe the most straightforward way of getting the job done...from an end user's point of view.
Ironically, if it were a straight Debian machine, I'd never have thought of configuring the NIC in the GUI. _________________
LOL. I have tried Ubuntu twice now and have not cared for it at all. It's really popular, but it sure doesn't float my boat at all. I greatly prefer how Debian does things. It's straightforward approach just really sits well with me.
hi again, just to clarify, for the D-Link, my brother is using the DFE-538TX. And the ubuntu version is 6.10, i believe its called Edgy (sorry, im still very new to linux and how it works).
hi again, just to clarify, for the D-Link, my brother is using the DFE-538TX. And the ubuntu version is 6.10, i believe its called Edgy (sorry, im still very new to linux and how it works).
Thanks in advance
That card has a very common chipset (realtek rtl8139) and the module/driver for it is loaded into the Linux kernel by default, and has been for several years. All you should have to do is configure it.
Follow the directions I gave you earlier in the thread about seeing if the card is recognized (type lspci and hit enter in a Gnome terminal). If you see the card listed you know your computer sees it. Then just follow Trip's instructions as to how to activate and configure it. In the network configuration wizard it will appear as eth0 if there are no other networking cards installed. One caveat to that is that sometimes firewire ports will show up as eth0 and the first network card will show up as eth1, but the wizard will tell if a networking connection is a firewire port. If there is more than 1 network card installed then the cards will show up as eth0, eth1, eth2, etc.... (That's shorthand for ethernet 0, ethernet 1, etc... as basically all home and business networks these days are ethernet networks.)
If the card isn't recognized using lspci then check the physical installation of the card (make sure the card is fully seated in the pci slot). If it still isn't recognized after that then the card or the pci slot are defective.
sorry for being a total noob about this. but before, it showed eth0, wired conection, and dial up. but now it only shows wired connection, and dial up.
i followed all your steps, but still. no internet. I typed the lspci in the terminal and yes it did show my ethernet card installed.
im not sure on whats happening with my computer, but if you can, please help.
sorry for being a total noob about this. but before, it showed eth0, wired conection, and dial up. but now it only shows wired connection, and dial up.
i followed all your steps, but still. no internet. I typed the lspci in the terminal and yes it did show my ethernet card installed.
im not sure on whats happening with my computer, but if you can, please help.
No problem. We were all noobs at one time. If you determine to learn you won't stay that way for long.
Here are some more commands to run from a Gnome terminal. They will help us to know if some relevant software is running and/or installed.
"ps -A | grep network", We are looking to see if a program called network-manager is running. If it is this command should show it to us. The | character is shift->\.
"sudo dpkg -l | grep network-manager", If the above command doesn't show that network-manager is running, run this one to see if it is installed.
"lsmod | grep 8139", This command will show us if the module/driver for the card is being loaded by the kernel at boot. If you get an empty return it isn't. If it is, you will get at least on line with 8139too in it.
"ifconfig -a" This command will show us if eth0 exists in the system. It should show at least two entries: eth0 and lo.
"ping localhost". This should give you output that looks like this:
Code:
64 bytes from localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.058 ms
To stop the output hit CTRL-c and that will kill the process.
Last of all check to make sure the ethernet cable is attached solidly to both your ethernet card and your cable or dsl modem, or home router if you have one. If you don't have a home router I'd advise you to get one. They are not all that expensive, but are well worth the money invested.
Now, when you say you followed all directions, do you mean both mine and Trips's directions for configuring and activating the connection, or just my directions that have been basic steps for troubleshooting the problem? Trip's directions are the ones to follow for activating the connection.
i dont know whats happening with my ubuntu, but i followed both yours and trip's instructions. but when i put ps -A | grep network, nothing shows. same with sudo dpkg -l | grep network-manager. the only thing that showed was ifconfig -a. not even ping localhost.
Joined: Jul 7, 2003 Posts: 1267 Location: Boise, ID, USA
Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 8:13 pm Post subject:
Interestingly enough, I issued the first two commands on one of my Ubuntu boxes and got no results. ifconfig -a produces information on eth0, lo, and sit0 as expected and the machine is on the network. _________________
i dont know whats happening with my ubuntu, but i followed both yours and trip's instructions. but when i put ps -A | grep network, nothing shows. same with sudo dpkg -l | grep network-manager. the only thing that showed was ifconfig -a. not even ping localhost.
What did lsmod | grep 8139 return? That "ping localhost" returned nothing says that most likely the correct module hasn't been installed or loaded into the kernel. I suppose it's possible that network-manager isn't used if you don't have multiple network interfaces so that may not be a problem so we will just ignore that for the moment.
Did ifconfig -a return a result for eth0 or just for lo and sit0?
Try running "modprobe -nv 8139too" and report back the exact message it returns.
Also put the results of ifname -a in your post.
One last thing to try, and this is to see if the card itself is bad, is stick it in another computer and see if it works there. It won't matter if it's Windows or Linux, we just want to make sure it isn't a card that is DOA.
eth0 and lo are listed when i inputted ifconfig -a, and when i typed lsmod | grep 8139, nothing showed. when i typed modprobe -nv 8139 too, nothing showed. ahh this is getting frustrating. will ubuntu 7.04 be this hard too? because i am thinking of switching if i find out if it will be easier.
eth0 and lo are listed when i inputted ifconfig -a, and when i typed lsmod | grep 8139, nothing showed. when i typed modprobe -nv 8139 too, nothing showed. ahh this is getting frustrating. will ubuntu 7.04 be this hard too? because i am thinking of switching if i find out if it will be easier.
One problem I see in your modprobe entry is that the name of the module is "8139too", not "8139 too". I don't know if that is a typo here, or if you really entered it that way, but if that is how you entered the command it could not have succeeded. You wouldn't see an error, but the command wouldn't succeed either because of the typo. If you didn't enter the command correctly try entering it without the space post the exact output from it.
You also didn't say if you tried the network card in another computer either. This entire problem is very possibly a defective card, and the only way you'll know if it is or if it isn't defective is to install it in a working machine. If it won't work in any other computer either the problem isn't your Ubuntu install.
It is not unknown by any stretch of the imagination to have brand new computer parts that do not work right out of the box. It's actually fairly common.
hey guys, i tried the driver on another p.c and it works. but when i put it back and this time i put it in another PCI slot, and reformatted my ubuntu, the eth0 is now showing in my networking window. but still no internet and the modprobe thing was a typo, i meant to have the 8139too in one word
hi, edit:
um i am able to access my router's webpage now, but im still confused on how to operate this. my router is a linksys wireless G 2.4 GHz,will it work with linux?
hey guys, i tried the driver on another p.c and it works. but when i put it back and this time i put it in another PCI slot, and reformatted my ubuntu, the eth0 is now showing in my networking window. but still no internet and the modprobe thing was a typo, i meant to have the 8139too in one word
hi, edit:
um i am able to access my router's webpage now, but im still confused on how to operate this. my router is a linksys wireless G 2.4 GHz,will it work with linux?
If you can access the router's setup pages then the driver for the card is loaded, the card is working, has an IP address, and your ethernet cabling and router are also functional.
I don't know what ISP you are using but it's now time to contact them and make sure you understand how to make your connection to their network through your router. They all have a slightly different procedure so that's something you need to talk to them about.
Wireless is probably a rabbit trail for you as your computer has no wireless capability from any of the questions you've asked. Also, I've yet to see a router setup that won't work with just about any browser so the OS on your computer is irrelevant as far as your router is concerned. TCP/IP is TCP/IP. It is OS agnostic.
I'd advise you to shut down the wireless portion of your router unless you have other computers with wireless interfaces that will actually use the wireless part of your router. If you don't have any other computers that have wireless interfaces all the wireless portion of the router is doing is creating one huge security hole for you, a way for someone to access your computer in a way that bypasses the firewall and other features your router places between you and the internet that help protect your computer from malicious entities. Shutting down the wireless portion will also keep people from stealing your bandwidth, using your internet connection for free, and possibly doing some type of file sharing or downloading that will bring the RIAA or MPAA down your neck because the bandwidth parasites using your wireless will be seen as using your internet connection so you'll be the one to get sued as the connection is in your name, not their's.
Wireless setup is quite a bit more involved than setting up an ethernet connection.
1. You need to choose the level of security you want from what is available on your router. Read your router's documentation to find out what is available on it.
2. Read the documentation on your wireless card to see if your wireless card will support the same levels of security that your router does.
3. Once you have chosen the level of security you desire set your router up according to its documentation.
4. Set up your laptop to use the same level of wireless security. How you do that will vary according to the OS you use on your laptop.
Wireless security is pretty involved so I'd recommend that you do some study in this area before you start so you have some idea as to what you want to do. There is a lot of documentation out there and Google is your friend in this area. Google the different types of wireless security both your router and your laptop wireless card support and start from there.
I'm willing to help, but you need to do some learning on your own first. You need to have some idea as to what you are trying to accomplish, not just someone telling you do, a,b,c,d and end up not understanding anything at all about what you're doing.
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 9:53 am Post subject: similar problem in ubuntu 5.10
i experienced a similar problem in ubuntu 5.10..i don know much bout linux bt still i m not a novice.i shifted from xp to ubuntu but previously my nic card was working pretty fine.but after installing ubuntu i cant access internet from my pc. i tried lspci it show the device as ethernet controller bt shows it as unknown device..i typed in ifconfig -a
it did not show eth0 either...can u please help me to configure my network card...
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
Purchase one of the products from our new
online shop.
For each product you purchase, the Linux Tutorial gets a portion of the proceeds to help keep us going.
Login
Don't have an account yet? You can create one. As a registered user you have some advantages like theme manager, comments configuration and post comments with your name.
Help us cut cost by not downloading the whole site!
Use of automated download sofware ("harvesters") such as wget, httrack, etc. causes the site to quickly exceed its bandwidth limitation and therefore is expressedly prohibited.
For more details on this, take a look
here
Forum FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
Show him how to run ifconfig, edit /etc/network/interfaces, and use ifup and ifdown.... 
