[techtalk] installing nic for 1st time

[Samantha Jo Moore]

> > My problem is that I'm looking for "eth0" under /dev but it's not
> > there.  I compared with work and it isn't under /dev/ either so I'm
> > assuming it shouldn't be there.  So how do I configure a nic?
>
> Network interfaces don't get /dev entries.
>
> >  And can
> > someone explain where linux is getting 'eth0' from if it isn't under /
> > dev/?
>
> The names are made up by the driver (or the networking code above it).

In actuality, the names are aliases specified in the file /etc/conf.modules.
This file tells the kernel which additional modules to load at boot time and
how to refer to them.  In addition, you can specify parameters when the
kernel loads these modules.  In my case I have a box with two ethernet
cards.
They are the same type.  Thus I end up with two ethernet channels.  My
/etc/conf.modules file looks like this:

alias eth0 3c59x
alias eth1 3c59x

Samantha