I don't know for sure if I've posted any of this, but..
When I do a ping, the lights from the slack box and to the xp box on the switch do blink, so it should be the xp box that is devious in this case, right? The lights on the back of the XP box's onboard NIC blinks also! Really strange!

Here is a post of JUST route, no -n option..

Yeah. The first thing that needs to be done is to get the two machines to talk to each other. After that, the internet will be easy. That route result doesn't show a default one. Perhaps that's because they aren't even conversing yet.

Check your /var/log/messages and/or the result of dmesg (probably need to be root to read it) and see what is happening when the machine boots up. pay particular attention to the kernel messages about ipv4 or tcp/ip. Usually, they are called up to action either just after the cpu messages or before the NIC is activated. Another thought. Perhaps your NIC in the Slack box is not playing nice. Do you have two NICs in the XP machine (as in, a PCI one as well as the onboard)? If so, why not try routing throung the onboard NIC (can't hurt, since the modem is USB). It might be as wonky as an incomplete driver for the NIC. I, for example, have a Linksys Etherfast 10/100 in mine. It uses the tulip module. When I installed Mandy 10, the 2.6 kernel driver didn't fire up for the NIC. I had to 'force' it by putting it in /etc/modprobe.preload (the 2.5+ version of /etc/modules). The reason? The chip on the card wasn't a true dLink Tulip. It was a knockoff and not quite the same (I'm not actually pleased with it performance - I think I'll be replacing it).

More food for thought.

Damn! You're persistant. Many would have given up by now. You're an asset to the community already. Once you lick this, you'll be sharing it with others, I can tell. be back with more thoughts soon.

I was thinking that this might make me do a permanent install of Slack just so I can see what you're up against (I've only played with SLAX and Vector so far)

everything in /var/log/messages seems okay.. and as far as dmesg, I was just looking at that before I read this.. it all looks okay, there's no errors except for alsa which I'm not going to mess with until I get this fixed.

There is only an onboard NIC in the XP machine. I think I've narrowed it down to it being a firewall issue in the XP box.
With the firewall on under XP, I couldn't ping 192.168.0.1. I turned it off and could, though I could not ping 192.168.0.54. I set up networking rules in Norton, but I don't think they're taking effect for some reason. I've had a lot of trouble with spam control in Norton, so I'm thinking maybe the installation went psycho last time I installed it..

Either way, I believe all in all it is an issue with the XP box, since the lights on the switch don't blink while trying to ping when I'm using XP, but do blink when I'm using the slack box.. Just seems to make sense that way.

So far I'm loving slack. I've heard a lot of good things about it, and they all seem to be true so far. I was using mandrake and wasn't too fond of it, because of all the little extras. I understand their point, but wanted to get past that stage of *nix. I want to be able to USE it. I then installed Debian and it seemed nice, but I thought I would go full force and give slack a try.. It hasn't really seemed *hard* to do so far, just troublesome with networking (though I don't think even THAT is slackware's fault.. Feels like XP to me).

Well, guess I'll have to argue with my mom on uninstalling Norton.. I feel bad, though. All she does is check email and play mahjonng, and she has so many spam rules set up. Maybe it will make the spam control work like it should, though. Wish me luck.. lol

The mom thing is a hard one. See if the rules can be saved as a log file. Then you can enter them into Outlook Express (if that's what she uses). Or, you could install Thunderbird for her to use and turn on the Baynesian filter. A week of her clicking on the spam button will teach it enough that she will probably never see spam again. :)

ack, I would, but she loves incredimail.. I can't stand it myself, but I'm not a big email type person. I just use the built in email in my Opera browser and I'm happy.. lol. I did try out firebird and it was nice, I was going to try thunderbird but it slipped my mind with so much else going on..

Unfortunately, I can't save the spam control as a log file.. so right now I'm looking at every rule and typing it in notepad.. going to take a while I can tell, but I hope it will be worth it!

Thanks for all of the support!

Well, uninstalled norton and still no luck.. now I'm really running out of ideas.. lol

Anyways, here's a snippet from dmesg if it's any help maybe..
that's the only part that looked like it might be anything interesting.. any thoughts?

you've made a ton of changes over the course of this fiasco. may i suggest, now that norton is uninstalled. to try and start from scratch. first recheck all of the settings on the windows machine and reboot the windows machine. then start your configuration of the slack machine from scratch. i know this sounds redundant, but, w/so many changes over the course of a few days, it's very easy to miss something.

I just got done doing that, actually. I reinstalled slack from scratch and started doing the network from scratch, and no luck..

I'm going to go and buy a NIC for the XP host sometime (who knows when) and see if using that would help, but right now I'm truly at a loss. I don't know what else to try.

just so we're sure, what does

ifconfig

route -n

report. also lets have a look at /etc/resolv.conf, and /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf.

When you do that, put it in the Slack box first. Get one that's listed in the HCL and then you'll know it works. Too bad you didn't have one now to test. :(

Yes, I'm still trying to get this to work.. Could this have anything to do with the hosts file on the xp box, or the hosts.ics file, maybe? I keep adding 192.168.0.54 floodsbox.mshome.net (I changed it to mshome.net on the slack box just to make sure it's not some crazy domain stuff going wrong maybe...) and I don't know if I'm missing something or not. Looked around online and it all seems like I did it right, but do any of you know what I should add, just to quadruple check? :confused:

Been looking around and it looks (could be wrong, easily.. haven't found something that says it straightforward) like I have to be part of a domain, and I have the XP box setup to use a workgroup.. How would I start a domain, or is it needed? I'm just doing *anything* I can think of now.. lol. Getting frustrating beyond belief.. won't give up, though. :rolleyes:

Sorry to break it, but the "Domain" i have already set up was already the workgroup I agreed upon. Seems that you're doing it all right.

well.. damn. Don't know any more.

Thanks for all the help vector and peacedog. Guess I'm going to have to just give it a rest or take it to circuitboard here since they're all hardcore linux people.

Thanks again