Alright, I am very new to linux i am currently running slackware 10.2 and using the kde enviornment. I am not sure where to even begin to start setting up my nic and such, i trolled around and looked at some of the other threads and the output of my ifconfig gave me my loopback address. Not sure what else you need as far as info... Let me know

What kind of network card are you using? Also, give us the output of lsmod, that will tell us whether the required module is loaded or not. As well as this, give us some info about how you're connecting. Are you connected to a router? If so does your router use DHCP? I think it's most likely. After we get your network card ready for use, you'll probably want to use netconfig.

Edit: this will be useful to you .

First off, Welcome to Slackware!

Nylex's advice is dead on the money. We can't go much further until we know what the results are.

Here's how:

Login as 'root' (Since you're not on the net, it won't hurt, and you'll get the outputs we need)
From a console (Kinda like a DOS box) type:Note: Don't type the '#', it's just a prompt for the root user.

Post the results of all three commands (Copy/paste to a file you can get to on another OS, i.e, a floppy...lol)

1. list your hardware, look for nic(lspci)
2. check if the module for your nic is loaded(lsmod)
3. follow my simple tutorial

--My simple tutorial to set up for nic(static ip)--

#ifconfig eth0 10.0.0.6 broadcast 10.0.0.254 netmask 255.0.0.0 up
#route add default gw 10.0.0.2
#pico /etc/resolv.conf

10.0.0.6: your workstations/lappies static ip
10.0.0.2: gateway(router, computer with net connection etc)
/etc/resolv.conf: add 'nameserver <name-server-ip-here>

umm... just ask me if you want to know how to do this if you use a dhcpd on your network.

Much easier to use 'netconfig' in Slackware, ecspecially for a newuser. It will do all the above, plus setup the correct conf files.

alright here we go here is the first one
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet (that is my nic)
lsmod
Module Size Used by Not tainted
usb-storage 62432 1
snd-pcm-oss 36736 0 (unused)
snd-mixer-oss 12376 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
usb-ohci 19368 0 (unused)
usbcore 59148 1 [usb-storage usb-ohci]
snd-ali5451 11364 0
snd-ac97-codec 58556 0 [snd-ali5451]
snd-pcm 54344 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-ali5451 snd-ac97-codec]
snd-timer 13764 0 [snd-pcm]
snd 32772 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-ali5451 snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm snd-timer]
snd-page-alloc 4712 0 [snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm snd-timer snd]
soundcore 3396 3 [snd]
ds 6548 2
yenta_socket 10436 1
pcmcia_core 39172 0 [ds yenta_socket]
ide-scsi 9392 0
agpgart 45508 0 (unused)

and for the ifconfig
lo Linkencap:local loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask 255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 ovveruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 ovveruns:0 frame:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:688 (688.0 b) TX bytes:688 (688.0 b)\
AS for my network...I have everything plugged into a Catylst 2900 series switch and i am using a Cisco 2621 as my router... Overkill i know for just a home network but it helped when i was studying for my ccna and i would like to set the linux box to accept dhcp at first and then later on i will look into a static route

Did you run 'netconfig' as root at a console?

The module I think you need doesn't appear to be loaded.

The National Semiconductor Corporation seem to have Linux drivers available on their site here, but you may not need to download and install those. There should be a module called natsemi that you can use.

Right, I'm not at my Slackware machine right now (it's a bit dead ), so I'll try to guide as well as I can. Can you try

$ ls /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net | grep natsemi

please? Hopefully this is the right folder. Make sure you use the same type of quotes that I have when you write uname (they're called backticks). Post the output here.

natsemi.o.gz is what i come up with

Ok, now try

# modprobe natsemi.

If nothing appears to happen, that's usually a good sign!

nothing happend, i got moved down to the command line again

Again, that's usually a good thing . If you do a

$ dmesg | tail

is there anything relating to natsemi?

Edit: actually, you can probably go ahead and just run netconfig. Hopefully cwwilson721 doesn't shout at me! Oops..

scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Vendor: LEXAR Model: JUMPDRIVE SECURE Rev: 1000
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi disk sda at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
SCSI device sda: 1010784 512-byte hdwr sectors (518 MB)
sda: sda1
WARNING: USB Mass Storage data integrity not assured
USB Mass Storage device found at 2
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usb.c: USB disconnect on device 00:02.0-1 address 2
bash-3.00#
is what it gave me

Ok, seems related to a flash drive, but never mind. Try running netconfig (as root). The instructions should be quite easy to follow (I hope, I haven't used it in a while!).

alright i ran it