Correct. If you can type your router IP address into the web browser and get the setup page, then you have the correct IP. You also have a working network connection between the router and that computer (I'm assuming you're doing this on a different computer, otherwise it has been working all this time).

dmesg | grep eth0:

skge eth0: addr 00:0c:6e:67:87:1c
eth1394: eth0: IEEE-1394 IPv4 over 1394 Ethernet (fw-host0)

cat /var/log/syslog | grep eth0:

Jun 29 08:12:07 johndesk dhclient: Listening on LPF/eth0/
Jun 29 08:12:07 johndesk dhclient: Sending on LPF/eth0/
Jun 29 08:37:46 johndesk dhclient: Listening on LPF/eth0/
Jun 29 08:37:46 johndesk dhclient: Sending on LPF/eth0/
Jun 29 08:37:48 johndesk dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
Jun 29 08:37:53 johndesk dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
Jun 29 08:38:01 johndesk dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 13
Jun 29 08:38:14 johndesk dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
Jun 29 08:38:26 johndesk dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 21
Jun 29 08:38:47 johndesk dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 2
Jun 29 08:45:09 johndesk dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
Jun 29 08:45:12 johndesk dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
Jun 29 08:45:19 johndesk dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 20
Jun 29 08:45:39 johndesk dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 19
Jun 29 08:45:58 johndesk dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12

whoo... glad you can make sense of this. And yes, this is a different computer

Okay, so it looks like the ethernet in the machine is up and running, but the router isn't giving it an address (or the cable is bad). Do you have DHCP enabled on the router?

yeah.. on the setup page it has a "DHCP server" option, and the radio button for "Enable" is checked. Also, the Internet Connection Type is "Automatic Configuration - DHCP". Good to hear that the ethernet is working, though.

What is the DHCP users set to? And the Lease time?

Maximum Number of DHCP users is set to 5, and the lease time is 0 minutes. The page for the router has a note indicating that 0 means one day.

EDIT: I just upped the number of users to 15, for safety's sake. We only have 4 computers here, but why toe the line, right? Should I run dhclient again?

Just one more stupid question, what port is the cable plugged into on the router (from the linux box)?

It's plugged into port 2. I don't think it's a bad port or anything because it was working back when the poor thing was running Windows.

No, I just wanted to ask stupid questions...

I guess there's a quick way to check the cable. Unplug the cable from the working box and plug it into the linux box.

Alright, I'm about to. Should I restart the linux box after connecting, and/or run dhclient, and/or just ping away?

I would just do /etc/init.d/networking restart as root. Then try to access the linksys router.

It WAS the cable!

...but I couldn't have done it without your know-how re: reconfiguring the setup to accept DHCP. I reset the cables, did a network restart, then a ping got another "connect: Network is unreachable". I ran dhclient again, and everything was different -- I got my first IP address! A ping then got a response, and I think I'm good to go.

So am I going to have to run dhclient every time I start this box up, or will everything automate from here on out? If not, can I add something to my startup list? Where is the startup list, anyway?

And finally, a rousing chorus of "WHO DA MAN? YOU DA MAN!!!!" It is so uplifting to see that there are genuinely helpful people still around. Gives me hope for happy software like linux. I'm glad to be a part of it!

oh, sorry, one last thing... do I need to update the apt-get sources.list? It didn't automatically configure when I installed because it couldnt' connect.

Just sorry it took so long! I hate cable issues...

You shouldn't have to do anything since you added dhcp to your /etc/network/interfaces file. It should poll for an address at every boot (actually, I think anytime you plug/unplug the cable).

If you can't access www.google.com from an address bar later, you might have to add a nameserver to /etc/resolv.conf like we did before. YOu should be able to find them on the status page of your Linksys WRT54G.

Oh yeah, and if you want to get brave later on, most of the WRT54G's can have their firmware flashed to make a much more powerful router. I have one myself and boosted the signal strength just with a firmware upgrade. See the wikipedia article and this site.