LinuxQuestions.org - Networking problem with SuSE 9.3

Hi,

This is my first post. I’m a relative newbie to Linux, having recently set up a workstation in our small office. I’ve learned most things I need by googling and reading forum posts – now I have a problem I can’t solve and wondered if anyone can help.

Problem
I can’t set up a network connection. I've tried a number of network cards and I can get an eth0 device set up with a Hwaddr but I can't get the NIC fully configured to connect to our network/the internet.

Setup
I’m using SuSE 9.3 64-bit. It’s old I know, but we have to use this to run a specific piece of software (which requires the specific gcc and/or glibc libraries from this distro).

The system is an IBM Z-Pro (Xeon workstation) and I’ve got everything working fine apart from the network connection.

We have an office network with a DHCP server. In YaST, Network Card Configuration, Network Address Setup, I've got "Automatic Address Setup (via DHCP)" selected.

What I’ve tried
I’ve tried the onboard LAN – caused machine to crash during configuration so I disabled it in BIOS and put in a PCI network card.

First card I tried was a Netgear FA311v2 (just what was available in the shop) – Configured it in YaST and it chose the module “8139too” and all looked well. However, if I look in DeviceManager, Network Controller, Details it says “Available Yes, Configured No”.

ifconfig gives me this:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1B:2F:28:4D:CE
inet6 addr: fe80::21b:2fff:fe28:4dce/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:676 (676.0 b)
Interrupt:193 Base address:0x6000

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:376 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:376 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:26231 (25.6 Kb) TX bytes:26231 (25.6 Kb)

I can’t ping anything in the outside world; ping <address> returns “connect: Network is unreachable”.

Having read that there may be problems with the Realtek 8139 chip in this NIC in Linux, I also got an Intel Pro/1000 GT (chosen after a bit more reading since the required module “e1000” also seemed to be natively in the kernel). Unfortunately this gave me the exact same results as the Netgear card.

I know the cards are OK because I’ve tried them all (including onboard LAN) on the same machine with Windows (I’m not dual-booting but I have a separate hdd with XP for this machine also).

If anyone knows how to solve this problem for my SuSE 9.3 installation I'd be very grateful as we'd really like to get this machine networked! I'll be happy to post any more info you may require.

Cheers,

Chris