I installed mandrake 10 no ip detected with dhcp.... although mandrake detected and installed VT6102 via rhine II 10/ 100 which is a onboard lan {shuttle ak39n motherboard.} Over phone a friend tried helping but to no avail. Then installed suse on same system box...no problem detecting ip dhcp. What gives???????? Any known issues or manual configs???? When watching bootup screen bringing up eth0= Failed (detecting ip address)

If you have the most recent bootup information from the file /var/log/messages, it may help people troubleshoot.

Well I cannot get on line with mandrake......I use other computer with XP....there is like 30 pages if printed /var/log/messages and I dont know how to copy and paste these files from linux to windows seeing that I'm new to linux. Sorry. All I do know that suse worked fine loaded in same box.....mandrake no go. I like mandrake much better than suse

You wouldn't need to post all 30 pages...if you look at the dates and shutdown/startup statements, you could post just the last bootup messages...the one you just completed to look at that file....it shouldn't be that long...specifically, you should be able to pick out the lines that refer to your ethernet card and its configuration...eth0...you could save within Mandrake on some media (floppy, etc) then boot within windows, copy the lines into your later posts....

Wow while logging in as root to access /var/log/messages...accidently opened konqueror and found to be online..logged off and logged back in as regular user name found to be able to acces internet again but here is previous log when I wasnt able to access internet. This is really mind boggling now. And yet while watching boot up process still says bringing up eth0 =Failed......I just dont get it

Sep 11 14:47:23 localhost network: Setting network parameters: succeeded
Sep 11 14:47:23 localhost network: Bringing up loopback interface: succeeded
Sep 11 14:47:23 localhost ifplugd(eth0)[1240]: ifplugd 0.21b initializing.
Sep 11 14:47:23 localhost ifplugd(eth0)[1240]: Using interface eth0/00:30:1B:2E:CF:FE with driver <via-rhine> (version: 1.1.19-2.5)
Sep 11 14:47:23 localhost ifplugd(eth0)[1240]: Using detection mode: SIOCGMIIPHY
Sep 11 14:47:23 localhost ifplugd(eth0)[1240]: Initialization complete, link beat detected.
Sep 11 14:47:23 localhost ifplugd(eth0)[1240]: Executing '/etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.action eth0 up'.
Sep 11 14:47:25 localhost dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 6
Sep 11 14:47:46 localhost dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 20
Sep 11 14:48:23 localhost ifplugd(eth0)[1240]: Killing child.
Sep 11 14:48:23 localhost network: Bringing up interface eth0: failed
Sep 11 14:48:24 localhost portmap: portmap startup succeeded

Wait I remember doing something now in MCC I went into system ~services and seen that netplugd was not checked for run at startup. clicking on info said "netplugd is a daemon for managing non-static network interface" Not saying that this did anything I am running network through dhcp

Don't know much of anything about this stuff...you can web search and learn about it as well as I can.

Your netplugd comment would seem to be relevant, seeing as running plugd is what brings up eth0 (up eth0). I know that in fedora, you can activate network devices through the GUI. Perhaps you can do this using your GUI administrative tools(might be set to require root privileges to do this...you should be able to change that to enable users to activate). I am just guessing, but I think that after plugd was successfully run, the ifplugd bit brings up eth0, which then was able to successfully interact via DHCP. I think a second instance of eth0 was attempted as a consequence (perhaps reference to child?) which was subsequently terminated, resulting in a eth0 failed statement. This would mean that you now have one successful instance of eth0 going, and everything is still ok. All this is wild guessing from a plain-English interpretation of var/log/messages. If you have portmap running successfully, I would think all those statements mean one instance of eth0 is running and DHCP has successfully assigned a non-static IP address to you. Wow...serendipitous that you should have accidentally attempted connecting while logged in as root...don't know what stuff gets run when you do that...perhaps some background command to start netplugd or run ifup eth0? All that stuff in /var/log messages takes place before you inform the machine whether you wish to log in as root or user. I am guessing you also logged in as root previously and tried fixing things from the command line, but didn't open a browser. Perhaps the act of opening a browser as root automatically attempts those commands if a connection isn't detected. In any event, you probably want to configure things so netplugd is enabled in the startup sequence and enable the user to activate eth0. If you run into similar problems, during the boot sequence (at least in Fedora) you can enter "I" at the beginning to enable an interactive startup, which would query you about the services you want to start. In that case, it would have asked you about specific network services, which you could then enable. I would think there must be something similar in Mandrake.