Aargh!!! Not routing to local subnet
 

I have a freshly installed RedHat 7.2 (very basic install, at that) and thought I had the network configured right, until I try to hit any computers besides localhost. Some details:

localhost (127.0.0.1)
oracle (10.0.0.253) {our problem host}
LAN: 10.0.0.0/24

I have a host on the network who are fully connected to the LAN and the Internet. When I try to ping them:

From 10.0.0.253: Destination Host Unreachable
From 10.0.0.253: Destination Host Unreachable
From 10.0.0.253: Destination Host Unreachable
From 10.0.0.253: Destination Host Unreachable

ifconfig:
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:08:C7:F4:D1:43
inet addr:10.0.0.253 Bcast:10.0.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x6200

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:520 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:520 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:49340 (48.1 Kb) TX bytes:49340 (48.1 Kb)

route -n:
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
10.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
0.0.0.0 10.0.0.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0

As you might guess, 10.0.0.1 is the address of my gateway, hence the default route of 0.0.0.0.

With this configuration, why am I not able to hit other hosts? There is no firewall rules set on any of my boxes; I have checked physical connectivity (link light on the nic and the switch on all ports) and don't know what it could be. I even deleted and recreated the route entry for the 10.0.0.0 subnet and recreated it. Any ideas?
Thx

maybe a bad cable or other hardware problem?

are you pinging 10.0.0.1

i've tried a couple of cables; i am pretty sure the error message isn't referring to physical media, or it wouldn't be complaining about the lack of a route to host.
i've tried pinging 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.3, and 10.0.0.251, 3 hosts on my local subnet that are live. same error.

hi sancho, were you able to solve this? i'm having the same problem!!!! argh.
any useful info would be greatly appreciated!!!

What's in /etc/hosts?

oracle is other host?
can you ping from oracle?