On 28 Jan 1997, Kevin McMahon writes:

> I'm trying to install NetBSD on a Pentium with a 3c590 ethernet
> card.  The card works with the Windows 95 installed on the disk.
> The NetBSD kernel sees the card, assigns it ep1, and mentions the
> correct IRQ (11).  I do a ifconfig ep1 <ipaddr>, which works fine,
> but I can't ping anyone.  After a bit, it says "ping: sendto: Host
> is down".  I'm using the BNC connector on the card.  In Windows 95,
> the driver says it using IRQ 11 and address 6000-601F.

(1) To use this card, I had to use the DOS utility 3C59XCFG.EXE to set
the card to use that connector; I was unable to get this card to work
using the BNC or the UTP connector if the card was set to auto-detect
the cable type.  I had the same problem (auto-detect of cable fails)
for 3C509 cards in other machines, BTW.

(2) Your kernel is probably configured to allow both 3C509 and 3C590
cards.  If you build one that doesn't know about 3C509s, by commenting
out that line in /usr/src/sys/arch/i386/conf/GENERICADP (or whichever
kernel config file you use) and rebuilding, your 3C590 will appear as
ep0, which is much more 'normal' for a machine with just one NIC in
it.  I don't know if it works OK with a more generic kernel and ep1,
it "felt odd" to me so I made a custom kernel so that the 3C590 is
detected as ep0.

(3) Do check the netmask you are using is correct.

(4) Rather than manually typing 'ifconfig ep0 ipaddress etc', create a
file /etc/hostname.ep0 that has the info in it so the system
configures the NIC automatically at boot time.  This file should get
created as part of the normal NetBSD networking setup process...

Jonathan
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