Thanks prompt, lachlan

your suspicions were well founded. I tried "ping www.linuxquestions.org" and got back an unknow host error, but "ping 64.179.4.146" worked. It received as many packets as it sent with 0% packet loss. This definitely looks like a DNS problem.

Unfortunately, I checked the KPPP settings and I already had it on automatic DNS lookup, and in etc/wvdial.conf I already had "Stupid Mode=1", but it still won't ping name addresses. I also tried setting DNS to manual in KPPP, and supplying the ip addresses for the name servers I looked up on my ISP's website (I also entered them into the /etc/resolv.conf file) but that didn't work either. Incidentally, under my windoze partition, the DNS entry is set to automatic, so I shouldn't have to supply those addresses anyway.

Any suggestions? In the meantime, I'll keep playing around and doing some reading on linux networking. At least I know (think?) this is no longer a modem problem.

Thanks for your continued help.

Hi Everyone,

This looks like a firewall issue. I did an "ipchains -F" to flush all the firewall rules, and now DNS works like a charm. In fact, I'm posting this from my linux partition.

I still have work to do though. It feels like "ipchains -F" is a drastic thing to do, and I'm a bit worried about it. I'd like to relax the rules just enough to allow the resolver to work. If anyone knows a simple fix, I'd be very grateful. Otherwise, I guess it's time to learn all about IP chains and firewalls...

Still, it's nice to be back on the net. Cheers.