I think after mandrake crashed, and it did a error check I knocked off my inet, not sure how(im on windows atm).

Now whenever I start mandrake I get the error at the beginning :

Could not look up address pc1-mapp1-5-cust131-not.cable.ntl.com
This will prevent Gnome from working correctly.
It may be possible to fix by adding ^^ to file /etc/hosts.

Something like that anyway.

Ive looked in that dir and theres several files one called hosts.conf one called host. and another one that has slipped my mind.

Help me

Can you post what the file

/etc/hosts

looks like?

host.conf has this :

order hosts,bind
multi on


hosts has this :

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

hosts.allow has this :

#
# hosts.allow This file describes the names of the hosts which are
# allowed to use the local INET services, as decided
# by the '/usr/sbin/tcpd' server.
#

hosts.deny has this :


# hosts.deny This file describes the names of the hosts which are
# *not* allowed to use the local INET services, as decided
# by the '/usr/sbin/tcpd' server.
#
# The portmap line is redundant, but it is left to remind you that
# the new secure portmap uses hosts.deny and hosts.allow. In particular
# you should know that NFS uses portmap!



Hope thats enough info to help you help me

looks like your hosts file should have another interface listed other than just the localhost.
What do you get from the command?:
ifconfig

I think the hosts file is fine.
Your hosts.conf looks fine.
Your hosts.allow and deny are basically empty.

How do you access your ISP?

Dialup or ethernet?

ethernet nic card connected via cat5 cable to a cable modem.

I'm using Fedora 4.

I had the same problem and then I added this line:

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain dhcppc0

to the hosts file.

To test, I logged out and back in again and did not get the GNOME error.

My hosts file now contains the original entry and the line I added:

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain dhcppc0

Replace dhcppc0 with the machine name that GNOME complains about, log out then log in, you should NOT get the GNOME error.