hi guys
I need a IP scanner for linux ...like angry IP scanner in win...or net-view.............anything that lets me check a range of IPs for hosts and it resolves the hostnames automatically.........
thanks

You can run angry ip scanner under wine I believe.
Sorry that's all I have to contribute.
Or maybe you can do something like that ?

$ i=1
$ while [[ $i -ne 255 ]]; do i=$(expr $i + 1); ping -c 192.168.0.$i; done

(just kidding)

Is there an option for nmap for this?

I have found a lovely utility to get PC hostnames:

nbtscan

It works quite well, though it is NOT a port scanner. I've used it in conjunction with nmap and the pair work quite well together.

Here is the help for nbtscan:
NBTscan version 1.5.1. Copyright (C) 1999-2003 Alla Bezroutchko.
This is a free software and it comes with absolutely no warranty.
You can use, distribute and modify it under terms of GNU GPL.

Usage:
nbtscan [-v] [-d] [-e] [-l] [-t timeout] [-b bandwidth] [-r] [-q] [-s separator] [-m retransmits] (-f filename)|(<scan_range>)
-v verbose output. Print all names received
from each host
-d dump packets. Print whole packet contents.
-e Format output in /etc/hosts format.
-l Format output in lmhosts format.
Cannot be used with -v, -s or -h options.
-t timeout wait timeout milliseconds for response.
Default 1000.
-b bandwidth Output throttling. Slow down output
so that it uses no more that bandwidth bps.
Useful on slow links, so that ougoing queries
don't get dropped.
-r use local port 137 for scans. Win95 boxes
respond to this only.
You need to be root to use this option on Unix.
-q Suppress banners and error messages,
-s separator Script-friendly output. Don't print
column and record headers, separate fields with separator.
-h Print human-readable names for services.
Can only be used with -v option.
-m retransmits Number of retransmits. Default 0.
-f filename Take IP addresses to scan from file filename.
-f - makes nbtscan take IP addresses from stdin.
<scan_range> what to scan. Can either be single IP
like 192.168.1.1 or
range of addresses in one of two forms:
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/xx or xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx-xxx.
Examples:
nbtscan -r 192.168.1.0/24
Scans the whole C-class network.
nbtscan 192.168.1.25-137
Scans a range from 192.168.1.25 to 192.168.1.137
nbtscan -v -s : 192.168.1.0/24
Scans C-class network. Prints results in script-friendly
format using colon as field separator.
Produces output like that:
192.168.0.1:NT_SERVER:00U
192.168.0.1:MY_DOMAIN:00G
192.168.0.1:ADMINISTRATOR:03U
192.168.0.2:OTHER_BOX:00U
...
nbtscan -f iplist
Scans IP addresses specified in file iplist.

Hope this helps!

MrKnisely