hello, i have a problem with slamd64 that when im booting up i see the line:

dhcpcd: MAC = xxxxx

and very often it hangs then after a while it continues without an internet connection. the xxxx is my mac address. i dont know much about networking so any help would be much appreciated. thanks

what does "dmesg" say?

It is possible that your network interface isn't being detected correctly. Try type "ifconfig"(as root) and post what that says.

Also, what network card you using?(lspci will tell you that)

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:093:B1:98
inet addr:82.45.8.76 Bcast:255.255.255.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::211:9ff:fed3:b198/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2454 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:381 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:300420 (293.3 Kb) TX bytes:122255 (119.3 Kb)
Interrupt:17 Base address:0xe000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 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:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

this is what i get when it is working.

01:07.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2500 802.11g Cardbus/mini-PCI (rev 01)
01:0c.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 80)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8053 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)

and i think this is the bit you want from the lspci. hope thats ok. thanks for helping as well :-)

It seems as if you have it working(that inet addr). Is that inet address consistent with what your dhcp server is set up to give out?

it worked fine that time but the probelm is that about 2/3 of the time it doesnt work at all. ill try to the the infor when it doesnt work

Sometimes the lan card isn't picked up on my computer either, but this usually only happens when I don't turn the machine off between reboots. There may be enough electricity left in the system to louse up the detection process. Not very scientific, but maybe worth a try.

Maybe turn your computer off (like, switch off the power bar) for at least 30 seconds before booting. Also, if your lan card is on-board, it must be enabled in the bios.

I've also noticed that some lan cards have flakier support than others. Might be a good idea to check the hardware compatibility list to see if your card has any issues.

Harry

This could be way off base.....but under your circumstances I would make sure there is nothing wrong with the hardware side of it(wiring, switches, cable connections).