On Wed, 26 Jan 2000, Hutchinson, Floyd wrote: > I install Debian version 2.1.r4 on a Dell Optiplex GX1. But I am having > trouble locating the drivers for the 3com Fast EtherLink XL 10/100MB TX > and ATI Rage Pro Turbo AGP 2x. Can anyone help locate these drivers and > help me with installing them. Thank you. > >
The driver for the Ethernet card must either be compiled into the kernel or loaded at runtime as a module. The video card is supported by X Windows by selecting the correct xserver that supports the particular video card. As the two problems are not related, I would first get my network connection up and then work on getting X installed. When you installed Debian, you should have been gone through a process where you set up the devices for your machine. The network device (Ethernet card) should have been included in this. The availability of device drivers for specific cards is a function of the Linux kernel version. As new kernel versions are released, they have, among other things, support for more devices. The kernel version for Debian 2.1 is 2.0.36, which is a little dated, but still very functional. If your card is supported by that version of the kernel, then you should have seen it on the list of cards in the device configuration part of the installation and should have selected it. Another alternative is to include that driver when you recompile the kernel, but this is a couple of steps after the initial install ... and frankly is a bit more to bite off. Its hard for me to judge what advice to give you as I don't know what happened during the install or your level of knowledge of Linux. My first reaction would be to have you do the basic reinstall over and make sure you are able to select the Ethernet driver for your card and get it working that way. There are other ways to do it, but aren't quite so simple. For X, you must read the documentation for XFree86 or XF86Setup, which is, IMHO, the easiest way to install X. The XFree86 docs will tell you what video cards are supported and which xserver provides that support. Then you must install (in the normal Debian way(s)) the necessary X software packages, and run XF86Setup. Whew... Hope this helps...
