Newly arrived nano motherboard, I had an old (wheezy) live CD to attempt a netinstall
I got a "could not find hostname" error, which resulted in a minimal OS install.
I edited /etc/apt/sources.list to comment out wheezy and add stretch
apt-get update resulted in the subject error message.

No address associated with hostname

ifup -a does not return anything
ifconfig returns:
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWadddr 08:60:6e:f9::ec
inet addr: 192.168.1.1 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST 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:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:61 Base address:0x8000

eth0 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:19204 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:19204 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:3471721 (3.3 MiB) TX bytes:3471721 (3.3 MiB)

/etc/dhcp contents:
dhclient-enter-hooks.d/
dhclient-exit-hooks.d/
dhclient.conf
dhcpd.conf
.swp

/etc/hosts contents:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 kilroy.geevesnet kilroy

::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters

contents of /etc/resolv.conf:
search fios-router.home
# this was copied from my laptop's file
nameserver 192.168.1.1

ping 192.168.1.1 works
ping www.google.com does not work

Add
before the other entry and see if it helps.

hostname would be my choice for command but I'd have to know more where this is failing.


Grab the newest netinstall image and try a new install from it instead of the live cd maybe.

At some point on distro's you may be tempted to put some name in for host name. I'd avoid it. Usually folks names won't resolve to a FQDN. One could put that in hosts file but it may not translate in the order of hosts first and dns or wins or such order.

No joy.
Back to basics, I booted up with the live CD and pinged www.google.com. 8 packets transmitted; 8 received; 0% packet loss. So, *something* is working properly.

Since internet is reachable via a live CD but not an installed OS, I decided to try all over again with an up-to-date net install CD. Downloaded the CD, got to the network configuration, and it wanted a Realtek firmware. Downloaded that, and the install just blinked at me.
Start all over. I downloaded a DVD with GUI and other "contrib" additions, and installed that. Apparently the "contrib" doesn't include firmware, but at least now I could load the firmware from a thumbdrive via a GUI instead of command line. /var/log/dmesg verifies that the firmware actually is installed.

I no longer get the error message "no address associated with hostname". Now, I cannot even ping 192.168.1.1 . "Network is unreachable."
ifconfig no longer reports that it is connecting with eth0. That has been "modernized" to "enp2s0".

The only thing left that I can think of is that the "modern" connection wants a MAC address. I don't know how to find that. Someplace in /var/log?

Rant: If it ain't broke, why "fix" it? If it can be made to work with a live CD/DVD, why can't that be translated into a clean install?

The original problem was that the installation CD did not include or identify the required Realtek firmware.
The subject motherboard has two ethernet connections. After many hours trying to solve the error message, "cannot connect to server", I tried the other connection. Success. Hardware problem, not software problem.