Hope somebody can help this Newbie............
I think I have a DNS issue but I'm stumped. I have gotten this far:
I can ping an address but not a name (www.linuxquestions.org doesn't
work but 64.179.4.146 does). I connect at 45,333 which is all I've ever
connected with any dialup in my home.
My question is how do I enter a DNS address? I thought it was automatic
with my ISP? On my XP machine, there is checked to "obtain DNS server
address automatically". Thanks to all.

Try running netconfig as root in a terminal. It should ask you for all kinds of information. After you're done, it should work. If not, google around for DNS stuff and check some of the sources in my sig. There will be some good help in there.

You'll need to create/add /etc/resolv.conf

/etc/resolve.conf is the file that tells your Linux system where to look for the DNS server at.

'man resolv.conf' should give some more details, but basically you need a file that looks like this:

myisp.net
###.###.###.###
###.###.###.###

(obviously the #'s are your dns #'s from your ISP. Some places don't like to give them out, but threatening to move to another service usually does the trick.)

Sadly, it's three little lines that cause so many headaches. Hope this helps.

edit: I've been forgetting this all night...you need to be root to do this.

Scott_R is right. However, in your /etc/resolve.conf file...put in your DNS servers in this way (1st = higher priority)

nameserver <ip goes here>
nameserver <ip goes here>

-twantrd

Thanks everyone. I checked resolv.conf. There are 2 addresses in there.
They are xxx.xx.xx.2 and xxx.x.xx.3. Under KPPP statistics, the remote
address has xxx.xx.xx.4. If I ping the .4, works great. Is this remote address in KPPP staistics my DNS server address? Can there be more than 2 entries in the resolv.conf? I edited resolv.conf and put the .4 address
first, but still no luck. I will try netconf tonight. Thanks for the help. I want
to learn enough to help somebody else out!

scott_R was definitely right as twantrd pointed out. It's been so long since I've had to mess with my resolv.conf that I completely forgot about it.

If your netconfig doesn't work. Call up your ISP and ask for the DNS names. If they won't provide it, tell them you need it. If they say they don't know, ask to speak to someone who does know. If they say they don't support Linux, tell them you'll find an ISP who does and you'll be taking your business there. They should give you the info. If not, and you don't feel like switching ISPs, you can go to

www.whatismyip.com

to get your IP address, then in a terminal, do

whois <youriphere>

The domain name search tool. Because the IP is given to you by your ISP, technically it belongs to the ISP. So, you should get the DNS of the ISP this way. Hopefully this works.

Or if your running a windows machine that does have internet connection at your place...do 'ipconfig /all' and look at the ip addresses in the DNS section. Then put those ip address in your /etc/resolve.conf

-twantrd

If those dns servers are valid maybe you have them blocked with a firewall.

Thnks, guys. I give up for now. All I've gotten done is sit here at this computer,
ignoring my family night after night, screwing with this thing till sometimes 2AM,
going to work as a zombie.....all just because I want to get on the net with my
Debian, which I upgraded to 2.4.16. I have done everything I could on any post and have checked everything and still I can only "connect at 45,333" but I can't
surf the net. I have noticed that other people have had the same problem and their posts come out at a dead end. I have checked everything anybody even hinted at checking, so for now I will wait maybe 6 more months and get a fresher release of my Debian distro and try again. I appreciate this forum and all the time everyone has spent trying to help me.

i'm getting same symtoms from a rh 9 release that used to work, and now only starts dns lookups after a couple of minutes or a reboot - i'll try the netconfig and look at shutting down my apache site i'm hosting internally, so that netstat -nr looks cleaner when on-line. if it works i'll definitly post back!!!

i checked the resolv.conf and noticed i had a domain entry for another server (not my isp) i removed this, and nslookup seems a bit more reliable now. my route or netstat -nr command shows up a wierd entry which i'm trying to remove - and can't. hopefully this will help....