interface etho: failed + agere (lucent) modem, grahics card etc

[jonathon 0]

hi! i am new to linux and are a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing. when i boot up the following message appears:

 

interface etho: failed

 

could somebody tell me what this means and how to fix it. i am using a duel boot setup with windows xp. i have reinstalled mandrake 9.2 three times carefully changing the partition size and reading the help guide at www.linuxloader.com. my root is 5G, with 1G for the swap since i have 512ram and have 13G left over for the other partition.

 

 

i have a rex graphic card if that means anything to anyone and would like the correct linux software to make it work.

NVIDIA NForce 2(2m)SPP/IGA ATA Controller

 

Display adapter Radeon 9600 series

(Bye the way I am not really sure what all this means)

 

 

i believe my graphics card is 256.

if this info helps my mother board is k7 triton with firewire for AMD athlon xp processor which is 2.8

 

 

The other problem i am having is with the drivers for my agere (lucent) win modem 56k. the cd that came with is labelled diamond digital fax PCI BUS m110 data voice fax modem. i have searched for help but have had no success. i need the exact driver and its location. the site below is confusing.

http://www.sfu.ca/~cth/ltmodem/

 

also i have not figured out how to install mandrake 9.2 update package which i have on a cd.

 

i really want to move away from microsoft any help appreciated thank you jonathon, hopefully soon i will have a working system

 

 

 

[Dapper Dan 0]

Hi Jonathon, and welcome!

 

If you're serious about moving away from Windows, all of us here will be more than willing to help. Having said that, you must be prepared for the truth. It's kind of like deciding to take the red pill

 

The truth is, you will have to have patience, and may need to spend a few bucks in order to purchase hardware that will work with Linux, which will of course also continue to work for Windows if you decide to dual boot.

 

On your Lucent modem: I'm coming up pretty empty while searching google for it along with Linux. Most "winmodems" are not real modems and it is difficult to get even some of them working with Linux. Check this page out for possible information...

 

If someone here knows how to get Jonathon's winmodem working, please let him know!

 

Otherwise, if you cannot get it to work with "drivers" I'm unaware of, I highly recommend going with an external modem, most of which will work with Linux.

 

I know for a fact that the Actiontec 56k v92 serial modem works perfectly with Linux out of the box without any configuration except for setting up your dialer, kppp, so that might be one to consider. I also understand that the Best Data V92 external modem also works. Both are likely to give a performance and reliability boost over an internal pci modem.

 

These two modems WILL get you on the Internet.

 

I'm pretty sure danleff will have helpful information on your NVIDIA NForce 2.

 

[danleff 0]

As Dan eluded to, you have a good amount of hardware that will not work with Mandrake 9.2 out of the box.

 

You have a couple of choices.

 

1. Try Mandrake 10, which will allow your nForce motherboard hardware to work properly. I'm guessing you have onbioard NIC and sound on this system?

 

2. Compile drivers for the motherboard (which are available for Mandrake 9.2) from the NVIDIA website.

 

The interface etho: failed message occurs because Mandrake is trying to get the onboard lan card to work, but it is unable to do so.

 

Look at it this way. Your hardware is newer than the distro (Mandrake 9.2) that you are using. So, drivers are needed. The stock kernel (which contains the drivers) has no real support for the nForce chipset on the motherboard.

 

Another option is Fedra Core 2. But, if you have Windows XP already on the system, there are some steps that need to be taken to assure that Linux plays nice with an NTFS filesystem, if that is what you have with the XP installation.

 

If you want to test Linux in general, you can also try Mepis or Knoppix, which are a cd based distros that will give you an idea on your hardware compatibility. Maybe, just maybe, the winmodem will also work. If so, and you like one of them and your hardware works, you can than do a hard drive install, if you choose.

 

But I agree with Dan, invest in an external modem, specifically a model that he suggested, which will work fine in Linux. This may save a lot of hassles for you. If you choose to invest in an external modem, make sure that it is a model with a controller chip onboard the modem. Most are, but some are not.

 

So, depending on how daring you are, we can try one of these options.

 

By the way, does your sound work??

[jonathon 0]

Hi! Thanks for the replies. I am considering buying mandrake 10.0. Is my system compatible?

 

My motherboard is a gigabyte k7 triton and my video card is a Radeon 9600 SE. Are the necessary drivers included with mandrake 10.0? I have some drivers on the CD that came with the motherboard and I eventually got the sound card happening. Unfortunately this led to a whole lot of new errors on the boot up. Also programs disappeared from the desktop. I am using cable now so assume that my network card (IBM)is compatible. Regards Jonathon