New install of Mesa 7i92 on TCL lathe

Hi folks . I did a search  but too many results to read through and i suspect my problem is unlikely to be similar to anyone else's .

Background .
Converted the above  lathe to linuxcnc in the lockdown  but had persistent problems since the outset .
It recently blew another DC driver so I was persuaded to ditch DC and go to a Spindle Servo setup . The advice was to use a Mesa Board , 7i92 being suggested as the cheapest   yet having sufficient inputs and outputs .
I have bought and fitted the gear.

I  am using the common cheap chinese 5 axis BoB connected to the DB25  and the 26 pin header is connected to my keyboard via ribbon cable to a "Klippon " terminal block.   (in the old setup I was using two parallel ports) 

I intend to use step and direction to control the spindle motor  and  to use the encoder for positional feedback. 

System powers up OK  with a  rapid set of LEDs on the card  but any mesaflash command gives a negative feedback, such as "not found " so seems to suggest that my PC is not seeing the Mesa card.
I own up to being totally lost with a lot of the info in the manual. I do not have a background in computing  and I find a lot of the jargon in there confusing.  Is there a simple initiation  procedure I could follow?

Any help would be much appreciated !

what have you done to the Mesa 7i92?

Have you just plugged it into an ethernet port?

have your tried pinging the card?

Here is the manual for the 7i92
www.mesanet.com/pdf/parallel/7i92man.pdf


try ping 192.168.1.121

do you get a response?

if you get a response then you can load the firmware using:

mesaflash --device 7I92 --write FPGAFILE.BIT
(providing you have NOT changed the default IP address [no need to unless you have a few cards]

the bit files are available here:
www.mesanet.com/software/parallel/7i92.zip

Thanks to both .
Card is connected to 5v power and Ethernet as well as both I/O connectors .
Green and amber leds at the ethernet port and board cycles slowly through the green leds in turn eventually to a full set before it recycles

Have read the manual although I dont understand a lot of the acronyms and find it generally a bit unfathomable .
Have also downloaded the Hostmot2 pack of bit and pin files.
When I ping the address it comes back with "connect : network is unreachable"

I am guessing I need to see a connection here before I can progress to Andy's link

there is a key bit in the link Andy posted which is:

Configure network with static address
Add these lines to the file /etc/network/interfaces to configure eth1 with a static address:

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 192.168.1.1
hardware-irq-coalesce-rx-usecs 0

now there is also another key point..... is this machine connected to the internet too.... via a router???

if so, IP address 192.168.1.1 is also sometimes assigned to the router and you cannot use the same address.

first I would suggest just setting up the machine and 7i92 without being on any other network,
no WiFi
no other ethernet connections
just one cable from the pc to the 7i92 to get the two talking together

you can then reassign IP addresses later if you want the pc on the network too

also don't connect the Mesa 7i92 via a router or hub it must be a direct network connection

the flashing lights are good as it shows that the pc is communicating with the 7i92 so you have the right network cable (there are 2 types and older network cards in my experience do not charge automatically between the two)

if you are new to this and it all looks really complex in the manual then take small steps as Linux is different to windows if that is what you are used to and the Mesa cards can be programmed via bit files to be reconfigured to do different things on different pins and are really easy when you get you head past the first wow moment

I have only one Ethernet connection and AFAIK no wifi so no conflicts there .
I am new to this and confused .
Take this for example
" Configure network with static address
Add these lines to the file /etc/network/interfaces to configure eth1 with a static address:

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 192.168.1.1
hardware-irq-coalesce-rx-usecs 0 "

All very simple to you guys but to this confused newbie the question arises ;-

Which file do I add them to???

So I have edited and saved the file as shown
 

I have tried a number of IP addresses
192.168.1.1
192.168 .1.121   default
and even
169.254.61.149   This is the address given if I connect the card to a windows  machine and look for it using  C prompt  and   ipconfig /all .  On windows I can ping the card using that address and it responds

So I reconnect to linux and try with ip a
This is what I get
  
I see nothing in that which looks anything like an ip address for the  Mesa  so really am fishing in the dark for something appropriate to use as the address in "/etc/network/interfaces"

Ideas appreciated
 

looks like Linux is using ip6 for your ethernet card. not sure how to force ip4