Hey all, The brief version of my question:
I'm trying to make a connection over plip (w/ laplink cable) between my
desktop and a crusty old laptop. plip loads fine on both machines, and
packets are travelling fine from the desktop to the laptop. Packets from
the laptop to the desktop are lost something like 85%-100% of the time,
with "plip0: transmit timeout(1,87)" error for the lost ones.
How do I make this into a usable connection?
The whole story:
As I've mentioned a couple times to the list over the last couple of
weeks, I'm trying to install woody on this ol' P133 laptop I got as a
hand-me-down. Laptop has no NIC, no CDROM, and a toasted old NiCd
battery that'll hold enough charge to run for about 30 seconds. So, I'm
not sure the thing is actually worth the price of a pcmcia ethernet
card, and I figured I'd install debian over plip. Great theory, but...
Off the installation boot/root/driver floppies, I couldn't convince plip
module to load at all, so I installed base from floppies. Fine.
Now, after doing some voodoo to put the parport's IRQ into /proc...
I've convinced the plip module to load. Good.
When I have the parallel port in EPP or ECP mode, I ping to my desktop and
get 75%-85% packet loss. In bi-directional mode, I get 100% packet loss.
The error on those lost packets is always the same:
"plip0: transmit timeout(1,87)"
The lost packets are *not* showing up in my desktop's RX count in ifconfig.
Ping from the desktop to the laptop sometimes works, and sometimes gets
100% packet loss (no error shows up for the lost packets). Those lost
packets *are* reaching the laptop, but its answering packets are dying
of the same "transmit timeout" error.
I currently have the parallel ports on both the laptop and the desktop
in EPP mode (the desktop *was* in ECP/EPP, presumably autodetecting).
Any idea what to change in order to get that packet-loss down to the level
where that connection is some use?
Any idea what's causing that timeout error?
Is that timeout ping-specific, or is it configured somewhere for the
network interface... ie, can I supply a large value for that timeout and
get a slow-but-working network out of it?
Should I be suspecting my laplink cable? (store-bought, brand-new, 'Belkin'
brand)... if cable failure is a likely cause, I *can* probably exchange the
thing and try again... I suspect not, since the loss only ever turns up in
one direction.
Thanks,
-Chris
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