My linux box is part of LAN where the gate-way is another linux machine.
I 've set my resolve.conf as

search my_hostname
domain gateway_ip_address
nameserver gateway_ip_address

and /etc/hosts contain my ip address nad hostname.

Now!

if I ping to ip addr of www.google.com it pings, but not when
ping www.google.com

it gives "unknown host"

strangely, nslookup gives me ip addr of www.google.com

What must be missing ?

Note that, my linux file system is a cut-down version of red0hat 6.2. That is I 've removed some files to reduce size.

let me know the hitch.

..sharmila