Samba and Fedora Core 1 (ethtool and 3COM NICs)

[Jim Cornette]

Bill Nottingham wrote:
> Jim Cornette (redhat-jc at insight.rr.com) said: 
> 
>>What major breakthroughs were introduced between RHL9 and the first Beta 
>>for Fedora that deal with connectivity through the ethernet port?
> 
> 
> We keep better track of ethernet devices by tying physical PCI cards
> to their hardware address; this is done with ethtool. Apparently
> something in kudzu's quick 'load module; query with ethtool ; query
> for hardware address' cycle on 3c59x makes the driver/card very
> upset. It's not clear at all *why* this is happening, though.
> 
> Bill
> 
> 

Thanks for the narrowing down to ethtool. I have two different 3com 
cards and was confused as to the sudden fallout with a NIC that was 
almost ensured to work with earlier Linux versions. The later produced 
in 2000 3COM NIC works. It is the 1998 Rev A that does not work 
correctly for me.

I read some earlier problems that had something to do with an 
auto-negotiate feature in this NIC. Do you supposed that the 3COM card 
is being sent (unintentionally) a signal that makes this card change 
modes of operation?

If this is the case, maybe the offending signal from ethtool or kudzu 
can be redirected or something similar.

Is there a linux based program that can set these 3COM modes to one that 
is predictable?

Jim