OK, I found an old LAN card (really old, has a 10base2 bnc connector), and I found source files for compiling the onboard linux driver. Now I am going to continue for now using the add on card, but I would like instructions on how to get the onboard lan working. I have instructions on how to compile it and load it, but I need help with how to "integrate it" into knoppmyth.

Specifically, I assume that I load the system with the old card, build the new driver. But then how do I replace the old driver with the new one when I reboot the computer and remove the card?

YEAH!!!! I got it all to work! Well sort of, no sound, and the TV looks horrible, but at least I get a picture and it gets the guide and all that.

I still want to know how to use my motherboard's lan card (and audio if possible), and I am now reinstalling with an old sound card which hopefully will work (I have disabled the MB lan and audio).

Thus I have 3 issues:
1) How to use MB components (by this I mean what process to follow after booting of knoppmyth install CD). Pointers to finding files would help too.

2) How to get "clean" video with clean live TV. Currently there is snow and jerky playback. The playback is less important since I plan on using a separate front end (by the way, do I need to do anything special for that?)

3) Should I now move these questions to another forum, since its a gray line between if this is an install problem or not.

I seem to remember that you've got an Nforce3 chipset on the motherboard, which may not play given that R4V5 has and older kernel (2.4.25-chw). You may be able to download the latest Linux drivers from Nvidia and install them to get this working.

In general new chipsets often take a few months to get kernel support. The Nforce3 is newer than the kernel you're using here. This puts you on the wrong side of that equation. Frankly I surprised that you had so few problems.

Hmmm... I went back and researched your motherboard. It's an Nforce2 Ultra 400 chipset, not an Nforce3. I can still see where you might have trouble with the GB ethernet not being supported by the older kernel. If new drivers from Nvidia don't solve your problem you many need to check the Wiki for directions on upgrading to a 2.6.x kernel.

1) I found new LAN drivers, I'm sure I can compile them, but how do I use them (replace the existing so I can switch back to the onboard lan). This is a low priority since I can always buy a cheap 100MBit NIC to replace the antiuque nic I have in there now

2) My antique sound card is working too, but again it would be nice to know how to get the onboard one to work.

3) My biggest problem now is poor video quality and audio out of sync with the view. Any ideas?

Please don't expand this thread with every problem you are having... Start a new one/move it out of installation.

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

What I would do in this situation is to back off the new board and see if I could get it working decently on another machine. You said you had an eMachines. Tell us about that computer. Is it available?

How fast is it, memory, HD, display?

If that is not an option, I would explore using old fashioned floppy/cd-rom sneaker net to import the files onto the new PC. I assume you have a windows computer connected to the internet right?

format a regular 1.44 MB floppy on the windows PC. Then take the floppy and put it in the new KnoppMyth PC.

go to the command line clt-alt-F1
login as root

mount the floppy via

mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

unmount the floppy via

umount /dev/fd0

you can then access the files on the floppy and copy stuff back and forth

Now you can use that as a medium between familiar windows and the KnoppMyth PC until you get your system working better. Its the same procedure for mounting CD-ROMs you burn under windows ISO9660 format

mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/cdrom /cdrom

now the devices may be a bit different. On my PC the mount point is /dvd or

mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/cdrom /dvd

unmount via

umount /dev/cdrom

You are correct, you must get the LAN functioning first. So what you need to do is first make the output of the dmesg command into a file like

dmesg >output.dmesg.txt

and copy the file to the mounted floppy via

cp output.dmesg.txt /mnt/floppy

do the same for

lspci -vv >output.lspci.txt

cp output.lspci.txt /mnt/floppy

unmount the floppy and import the file into windows PC

The information in the dmesg and lspci will tell us about the hardware chipsets in the motherboard and as much as can be known about the LAN without a working driver.

Seriously, you should consider an easier/older motherboard that is better supported. Some of the newer boards are not supported by the linux kernel at first.

I am fairly sure you can get this working (depending on what we find) but if the lan is not supported out of the box these days it probably means manual compilation of a LAN driver module from source code. Not a trivial matter but still doable.

Post your results here.



Thanks!

Andrew Lynch

PS, don't take the PCI NVidia video card back just yet especially if it has TV-OUT. I almost guarrantee that it will work better with KnoppMyth than anything from ATI. It is going to be a real beast to get it working properly and AGP/PCI makes almost zero difference for KnoppMyth. I know, that is counter intuitive, but trust me, MythTV does NOT require high performance video. NVidia has world class support linux, head and shoulders above anything else.

Sorry, I didn't see all the replys when I posted. I appologize.

Lets move this thread to another section and get it out of installation. This is a reserved area.

Thanks!

Andrew Lynch