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rfdes · 2017-06-18, 22:06

Hi to the group.

I need some basic assistance with the hopes of modifying a driver that will work with a Netgear FA411 PCMCIA adapter so that I can use iPXE. This is an OLD adapter 16 bit PCMCIA card ( I have the Netgear Linux driver source code for porting) that I use with a logic analyzer that only supports 16bit PCMCIA cards. So, I'm sort of stuck. My analyzer does not even have a USB drive nor CD ROM support. My ultimate goal is to get a PXE boot system running so that I can run Clonezilla remotely.

I successfully compiled the online src code and created bootable media but my old card is not recognized. I'm not a Linux buff by any means but I do have experience with writing C code, etc. and thought that it would be fun and challenging to try and get a driver modified to support my card. If anyone would be willing to give me some tips (and moral support) it would be appreciated.

My first basic questions is: Do I need to 'build' iPXE to support a single card or does the build attempt to accommodate a bunch of cards by polling, etc.

Anyway, hopefully some poor soul will find it in their heart to give me some advice. I guess I could search for a PCMCIA card that is already supported by iPXE but what fun would that be?
Thanks
Jim

***NiKiZe*** · 2017-06-19, 11:41

Found references that the FA411 would be mostly NE2000 compatible
but that documentation also refered to axnet_cs

ipxe.dsk (or whichever wariant you have tried) checks pciids, Not quite how it is for ISA, but can imagine that probing is dangerous so that is likely not done.

so building the ne2k driver for ISA might work at least somewhat:

make bin/ne2k_isa.dsk

rfdes · 2017-06-20, 13:28

NiKiZe, thank you for the suggestion. I tried your recommendation and it didn't work. In fact the iPXE build locks up my old computer. I've also tried and old gPXE build and it also doesn't work but the computer doesn't lock up. I need to sit and study for a while. I have next to no Linux experience so I'm essentially a newborn baby.

If you have any other tips it would be appreciated.
Thanks again
Jim