I am extremely new to linux. i got the corel linux box from the store. i finally loaded it after fighting with win2k. i have a comcast cable modem, but i cannot get out to the Internet. at first i thought that the nic was bad, but it still new (linksys 10/100 eth). then a peer said i should try pppoe, i am unfamiliar with this, will i need it? when then PC was win2k, the nic worked well. i appreciate all help and comments in helping me get to the Internet to enjoy my new linux freedom. thanks!

-tom

Alright here goes !


1. You shouldn't need PPPoe for a cable modem. Did your cable modem ISP give you a username and password to sign on to, to get connected, probably not. So forget about the PPPoe, never seen a Cable ISP use that.

2. If your using a Linksys card, which model is it ? If its the LNE100TX, yeah that works in Linux and it uses the tulip module.
Type lsmod at the command as root, and if you see the Tulip module loaded and listed then its probably being used for your NIC.

3. If its not listed, try loading the tulip module with the insmod command: insmod tulip
At times if you want this to load up upon every bootup just comment it out in the /etc/modules file.

4. If it was loaded, type netconfig at a command prompt to start the network configuration to configure your network. Probably using DHCP which will make it simple.

5. After running that, obtain your ISP DNS servers IP addresses and you want to edit the file /etc/resolv.conf and put it in this format:

nameserver x.x.x.x
nameserver x.x.x.x

Where the x''s are the IP address of course.
Now type ifconfig at the command as root and see if it lists off any eth devices. If it does and you see that it has assigned IP and stuff.. you should be connected. If not, you may have to restart the machine or restart the dhcpd daemon..

Another tip, if your interested in running Linux which might save you all the above steps, you may want to drop Corel and install a different distro, Corel is pretty much extinct and not much support for it no longer.

Just to add to tricks great how-to

to grab an address from cable its either

dhcpcd -h <hostnamefromcomcast> -i eth0 or whatever interface goes to the modem

or

pump -h <hostname> -i eth0 same rules as above appily

get a real distro!

corel linux is obsolete and DEAD

since I am really new to this and it seems that coral is old and dead, what would be a good distrobution for a beginner? thanks for all the help...

Mandrake is considered the Newbie distro... and is probably mostly recommended for poeple just trying out Linux for the first time from Windows.

Mandrake 8.2, very easy to install and configure, installer even has a wizard to configure internet connections.

Gee, I could have sworn I said the same thing in slightly different words.

Nope, you said:

I have comcast, and recently they went to a different system.

I was using this ...

dhcpcd -h <hostname>

or for boot up set the DHCP_HOSTNAME=<hostname> in the network file.
And it worked from any nic.

Now it uses my mac address and I just setup the interface for dhcp in the network file, or just run this ...

dhcpcd

If you change the nic it will not be able to get out if your ISP is like mine is now.

dhcpcd will take care of your dns servers in the /etc/resolv.conf file.