I am trying to connect a SOHO Watchguard firewall to my Dell and read a bunch of documentation from the web but cannot help myself do this. Here is what's what.

There is a crossover cable. One connector is in the Watchguard WAN port (it also has four LAN ports). The other connector is in the lone Dell ethernet interface. The documentation said
1) setup the Dell ethernet interface to obtain an IP address automatically, which I did using 'netconfig.'
2) open a web browser and enter '192.168.111.1 to enter Watchguards firewall settings, which I did

The firewall and Dell are not connected though. When I try to ping 192.168.111.1, there is 'no route to host.'

BTW, before reading any documentation, I thought it would be simple as setting up the Dell ethernet interface to 192.168.111.2 on subnet 255.255.255.0 using the first LAN port on the firewall. Same 'no route to host' problem though.

In conclusion, for now, I cannot connect my computer to my firewall. My goal is to access the web-based configuration firewall settings.

Have you sucessfully used the network card before? Also check to make sure iptables isn't running on the linux box by typing iptables -L.

I know this may sound simplistic, but have you temporarily bypassed the firewall and gone straight to your outside to verify that the NIC is working? If it is, I am not familiar with the particular type you have but try not using a crossover cable but use a straight thru. Unless the ports are auto sensing and will auto config, that may be what is blocking your connection. I had a Linksys DSL modem here at work that was acting similar and it was because of incorrect cable type. Good luck and repost if it still doesn't work!