[realtek] HP PnP NIC Works

[JTBldrCO@aol.com]

I have the HP Pavilion 8580c with an HP EN1207DTX 10/100 PCI ethernet 
adaptor.  I wanted to set up this machine to dual boot - Win98/Linux.  What 
trouble I've had. Although I can spell TCP/IP, I am not a networking guy.  
First I thought I had a SAMBA problem, then I figured it must be a DNS 
problem.  With six Linux and/or networking books sitting in front of me here, 
nothing resolved the problem.  But boy, I know alot more about networking!

Then I found your support pages and fell into the threads about the HP 
Pavilion netwrok interface card trouble and the efforts to rebuilt the 
rtl8139.o with the latest code.  That thread ends with comments

This network adaptor is detected by Red Hat Linux 6.2 (2.2.14-5.0 kernel) as 
a SMC1211TX EZCard 10/100 (RealTek RTL8139).  And Linux will load the rtl8139 
module on boot.  But the 'ifconfig' command does not report it as an "up" 
interface.  (It would show using ifconfig -a).  The trick is to change the 
PC's BIOS setting to disable the way Plug-N-Play PCI cards are handled, as 
your support pages suggest.  However, there is no setting in the BIOS that 
appears to address this item on the HP Pavilion.  Here is the way to do it on 
HP Pavilions ....

Reboot and F1 into PhoenixBIOS Setup Utility at startup.

Right-Arrow to the "Advanced" page.  Below the CPU Type/Speed/Cache entries 
is a line: "Installed O/S:"  Three alternatives are offered: Win95, 
Win98/WinNT5.0, and Other.  Choosing "Other" makes all the difference.  Just 
make that change to 'Other;' and exit, saving changes.  Continue booting into 
Linux.  Now Linux networking appears to work fine.  At least the tests I've 
run so far - pingiing to and from another host on the LAN - running Windows 
ME; ftp-ing from WinME to Linux.

Funny thing is ... rebooting back into Windows98 on the server machine - 
peer-to-peer networking works fine (running again with the other Windows ME 
box).  However, it seems that TCP/IP is not functioning correctly ... Windows 
Peer-to-Peer uses NetBEUI, not TCP/IP, so your dual-boot machine can talk to 
the net either way.  

Of course, you could always toggle the BIOS OS setting as you reboot.

Either way, I now have Linux and Windows on the box.

Thank you so much for your insightful support pages.  I'm sure I find some 
use for all these books at some point.  (BTW, the Paul G. Sery book "Red Hat 
Linux Network Toolkit" has the best Linux network Trouble-shooting section in 
it.  It was that section that helped me zero in on the driver problem.  Also, 
the rtl8139.o file that came with RH6.2 has a date of March 7, 2000 so it may 
not be all that current.)

John Thompson
Boulder, CO