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by rwmj 2000 days ago
What's the problem with the ethernet card? I'm guessing Linux has deprecated/removed the driver for it? Also I'm quite surprised that Linux still works on a 386SX, because support for 386 was removed some time ago (https://lwn.net/Articles/527396/).
2 comments
incanus77 2000 days ago
Right, this was the first problem: “i386” distros actually pretty much all went 486+ some years back. So that severely limits the ecosystem. While you can always go back in the archive and get a bare kernel, I wanted a full system with init, package management, etc.

The card is (unsurprisingly) an ISA slot, an Intel EtherExpress 16. I forget exactly where I was with it when last I poked at this earlier this year, but the promising thing is I have it worked in MS-DOS 6.22 without issue. There are some utilities from Intel that I found that write EEPROM on the card to setup its IRQ and all of that, which is how I got it working in DOS.

Perhaps I’ll take another swing at it and document more precisely what the issues are and what I’ve tried so far. I wrote up the acquisition, repair, and resuscitation of the machine on a series of posts on my blog under “Project 386” beginning with https://justinmiller.io/posts/2020/04/26/project-386-part-1/ so I have intentions of adding some more posts.

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npongratz 2000 days ago
Just wanted to say that your Project 386 posts are fantastic! Thank you so much for writing them up! I really enjoyed reading them. I was so happy you got it running, and seriously impressed with your troubleshooting and analysis of all system components, and the eventual fix of the motherboard traces.
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incanus77 1999 days ago
Oh, thank you! They are so niche, but I really wanted to convey the sense of adventure and persistence that I was wrapped up in while trying to revive the thing. It has since led to a new hobby (I recently acquired a working 1986 Mac Plus) as well as a side business project that I hope to share more about soon.
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pantalaimon 2000 days ago
> I'm quite surprised that Linux still works on a 386SX

The resolution is that BasicLinux is pretty old itself:

> BL3 is a mini-Linux designed specifically for old PCs. It provides a slim 2.2.26 kernel

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