Linux on a Dell Inspiron 3700/7000/7500

PCMCIA Configuration

You should at least be using 3.0.6 of the PCMCIA card utilities. To find out what version of pcmcia-cs you have, issue the command "cardctl -V". You can obtain the latest PCMCIA driver source from http://pcmcia.sourceforge.org/. Debian and RedHat users see below. It may also help (especially if you have an internal modem) to add exclude irq 5 inside /etc/pcmcia/config.opts. Lastly, compile pcmcia-cs with CardBus support enabled unless you have a good reason not to.

* Debian users:

• Pcmcia-cs deb packages are available. The official pcmcia-cs package is located in the base directory of the developmental tree. You must also install one of the kernel images located in the same directory. The right modules for your kernel can be found in the admin directory. If you use your own kernel, you will have to recompile your own pcmcia modules. Install pcmcia-source (also in the admin directory) to do this. You will also need the kernel source (located in the unstable devel directory) and the kernel-package package (located in the misc directory). For anyone new to this, the basic idea after everything is installed is to first configure your kernel in /usr/src/linux using "make menuconfig". Then build it with the command "make-kpkg --revision local.2.0.36-1 kernel_image modules_image", where "local.2.0.36-1" is an identifier which you choose yourself to make your kernel name unique from the standard Debian kernels. After a successful compilation, you will end up with two .deb packages in /usr/src which you then install using dpkg.
• If you'd rather build your own pcmcia-cs package from scratch, you can follow the instructions here (with emphasis on the 3Com 3CCFE575BT card).

* RedHat users:

• Redhat 6.0 already comes with a pretty recent version of pcmcia-cs, so you probably won't need the instructions below, which are geared more towards older release of Redhat. However, if you need pcmcia-cs to complete the method 2 Xwindows installation described below, you can first install the pcmcia-cs package that comes with Redhat, and then untar pcmcia-cs-3.1.8-binaries.tar.gz on top of the Redhat version (untar the file as root from the / directory).
• Step by step instructions for getting and compiling pcmcia-cs yourself are available here (with emphasis on the 3Com 3CCFE575BT card).

* Other Distribution users:

• Install pcmcia-cs according to the instructions for your distribution. If you need pcmcia-cs to complete the method 2 Xwindows installation described below, you should first install the pcmcia-cs that comes with your linux distribution, and then untar pcmcia-cs-3.1.8-binaries.tar.gz on top of that (untar the file as root from the / directory).