All About Linux How To Install A Network Card In Linux

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January 12, 2005

How To Install A Network Card In LinuxThere are different ways of installing a network card in linux - and that too depending onthe linux distribution that you are using. I will explain each one of these methods here.

1) The Manual methodFirst open the computer case and insert the network card into an empty PCI slot. Thenboot up your machine to load linux. In linux login as root and then navigate to thedirectory /lib/modules/kernel_version_number/net/ . Here you will find the modulessupported by your system. Assuming that you have a 3Com ethernet card, in which case,the module name is 3c59x , you have to add this in the /etc/modules.conf file to let themachine detect the card each time the machine boots.

#File: /etc/modules.confalias eth0 3c59x

Note: If you have only one network card, it is known by the name eth0, the succeedingnetwork cards in your computer go by the name eth1, eth2 ... and so on.

Now you have to load the module into the kernel.

root# /sbin/insmod -v 3c59x

Next configure an IP address for the network card using ifconfig or netconfig or any othermethod if your machine gets its IP address from a DHCP server. Eg:

root# ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.5 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast192.168.1.255

2) The Easy wayRedHat/Fedora distributions of linux ships with Kudzu a device detection program whichruns during systems initialization (/etc/rc.d/init.d/kudzu). This can detect a newlyinstalled NIC and load the appropriate driver. Then use the program /usr/sbin/netconfig to configure the IP address and network settings. The configuration will bestored so that it will be utilized upon system boot.

Also see Assigning an IP address to know more ways of configuring an IP address for yournetwork card.

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Posted by Ravi

6 Comments:

Anonymous said...Awesome, worked like a charm! I haven't used linux in years and I forgot how to do this. Thank you!

5/21/2005 05:26:00 AMshaik said...

What is the need for two addresses for a single machine? Where does the MAC address fall deficient

of the requirements that an IP address meets?

11/07/2007 03:29:00 PMRavi said...

shaik,

This technique is quite useful. For instance, web hosting companies (can) use this technique to provide

unique IP addresses to multiple domains hosted on the same server.

11/08/2007 01:35:00 AMlokesh mohan said...

i have not bn able to install my athlon L2 card this is already running in windows but now i installed linux

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All about Linux: How to install a Network card in linux http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2005/01/how-to-install-network-car...

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and neither it is deducting the i have dirver cd it has linus\x driver since i am new to linux i dont know

what to do with that cd and files pls suggest reply me on vervelmb@gmail.com

3/02/2008 05:14:00 PMRavi said...

Lokesh,

If you are using a wireless card, then the above method will not work for you.

First make sure your network card is supported by Linux by checking the hardware compatibility list.

If your wireless card is not supported, you may be able to get it working using ndiswrapper

But if it is supported, then you may look at the following resource... Wireless lan pci card

3/03/2008 12:37:00 PMAnonymous said...

Hi,

i have installed Linux on my system. Linux is not detecting my rtl8168/811 NIC, which is working fine for

windows. Please suggest how to install ethernet in LINUX..

Thanks

Saurabh

3/09/2008 05:05:00 PM

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