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[efincoop]

Caitlyn, here are my results from netconfig and ifcongig -a

 ?
                                         ? Settings accepted.  Basic network    ? 
                                         ? configuration is complete.           ? 
                                         ? 
                                         ?               <  OK  >               ? 
                                         ? 
                                           



root:# ifconfig -a
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback 
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

My attempt to ping yahoo.com yielded an unknown host error so I tried to ping my router and got Network unreachable

[hata_ph]

Could it be really VL cannot detect the NIC card? Do you have any extra PCMCIA wired or wireless card? Maybe you can try that....

[nightflier]

Doesn't look like the NIC is detected. I just did some testing and modprobe will allow me to insert a module for non-existing hardware .  My guess is that neither e100 nor eepro100 is correct for this NIC. If so, the challenge becomes to identify the controller.

Just because another laptop has the same model number does not mean that the hardware is identical. There may be some differences between yours and your friend's machine. Not sure where to go next.

[hata_ph]

could upgrade to a newer version of kernel can detect the NIC?

[nightflier]

I kinda doubt that.. this is a rather old machine.

[hata_ph]

then another try is the PCMCIA card....

[efincoop]

So I popped a Linksys wireless PCMI card in, rebooted, ran Vlwifi and it worked    In fact I'm online right now.

I still wish I could get the on board NIC card working for situations where there is no wireless.   Is there such a thing as a PCMI NIC?

[nightflier]

PCMCIA wired NIC's:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2050260034%201178312020&name=PCMCIA%20Ethernet%20Adapter

[bigpaws]

The results from lspci does not show any information
about an ethernet card being in the machine. Since
this is an older machine the chances of actually having
a ethernet card are slim to none.

Bigpaws

[efincoop]

Excellent, thanks for the link nightfllier.  I was thinking of giving this laptop to my mother for surfing the web and basic word processing tasks.  So rather than set up a wireless network, I was hoping I could just plug in to the cable modem that will get installed from her ISP.  It looks like any of the name brand cards should do the trick.

One last thought.  I know in some Linux distributions there is something call NDSI wrapper which I believe is used to wrap Windows drivers to work inside Linux.  Do you think that is worth looking into for the issue with the current NIC adapter?

[efincoop]

The results from lspci does not show any information
about an ethernet card being in the machine. Since
this is an older machine the chances of actually having
a ethernet card are slim to none.

Bigpaws

Bigpaws, I think you are correct.  I believe it is a modem/lan adapter combo.  I think I may have misleadingly reffed to it as an ethernet card.  So if that is true, can I assume it is useless and that I should just pick up a PCMIA ethernet or wireless card?

[bigpaws]

The modem is listed in lspci. Yes you will need either wireless or
ethernet pcmcia card.

Bigpaws

[efincoop]

Here is an interesting development.  I just installed Vector Linux (5.9 Standard) to a second Dell Inspiron 4000.  The only discernible difference is this unit has 256 MB ram and a 40 GB hard drive.  On this install I chose to install all of the optional packages that I omitted from the installation on the first laptop.

After the install was completed.  I did a ifconfig -a and it showed both the internal Ethernet and PCMI wireless ethernet adapters installed and working!

It may be a long shot, but tonight when I get home I am going to reinstall Vector Linux on the first laptop and use the same installation configuration as this last install and see if it changes anything.  I figure I've got nothing to lose!

I will post back my results.  In the mean time, thank you to all of you who have responded and helped me out this this issue. 

[hata_ph]

wish you all the best....

[efincoop]

Reinstalled last night, no joy.  VL still did not recognize the network card    So the cards or chipsets must be different between the two laptops even though they are the same make & model (Dell Inpiron 4000).

I'll go ahead and buy a PCMI ethernet card, since I have confirmed that worked.  Thanks again for all your help