Ethernet not detected by liveCD

[nodyad]

I cannot configure the Internet because no LAN is detected during boot with the live CD (downloaded today). I'm using an EPIA M10000 board which has the VIA VT6103 LAN hardware. The setup tool in Puppy shows a list of available drivers but none match this particular hardware. The one VIA Rhine entry does not work. I have this same trouble with damnsmalllinux and Linspire as well (going through distros trying to find something that works).

Alternatively, I have a USB-attached Linksys DL-120 wireless card that I wish would work--but it is also not on the config list.

Ideas? Has anyone actually got the Epia M10000 to connect by LAN?
--Don

[BlackAdder]

The number quoted for the wireless adapter does not look like a Linksys one. Did you mean D-Link DWL-120? If so it should be supported by the Atmel drivers already part of Puppy 1.xx.
You can find them in /lib/modules/2.4.29/net/wireess/at76c503.
Try

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modprobe at76c503-i3861
iwconfig

the first loads the diver and iwconfig should show it as wlan0 if the modprobe is successful.
The wireless chips in these devices vary by device revision level, so an alternative might be

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modprobe at76c503-rfmd
iwconfig

If one of these is successful and your router is a dhcp server and you are using 64 bit WEP, you could get connected via

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iwconfig wlan0 essid "your ssid" channel "your channel" mode managed key "your key"
e.g. iwconfig wlan0 essid  mynet channel 6 mode managed key 6162636465
dhcpcd -t 20 -d wlan0

If the adapter is not a DWL-120, could you give us a bit more info. about it?
Sorry, cannot help about the Via VT6103, but there are several Puppy fans using the Via Epia motherboards and maybe one of them could help.

[nodyad]

Yes, the wireless device is the D-link DWL-120, sorry. It came out of an Omnifi setup that I am running directly on my LAN. I'll give the config steps a try.

[nodyad]

It was a BIOS issue. I had disabled "VIA onboard LAN" to shut off the insistent boot from LAN message at power up. Restoring that setting restored the LAN connection (still had to run the setup wizard on it, but got there). Now to get rid of that LAN boot (its not in the boot order choices, argh).

Thanks for the tip, though. I use cd to get into that directory and found that the files were still compressed. That was enough of a putoff to make me go back and look at the BIOS settings and thus figure out why the adapter was acting dead.
--Don

[BlackAdder]

Glad that you are onlline.
You don't have to worry about the files being compressed. Puppy takes care of that.