What do you call an blank screen when you attempt to telnet <linux box> 22 from the dos cmd
prompt ?

From linux could you 'ssh localhost' ?

Usually a blank screen (even without a prompt for user name) means that connection can't be established. Try to look at putty's logs (when you see the blank screen, click on the left-upper corner, and point to 'log' in menu), when does it stop?

OK, so PuTTY works with a different machine, so neither PuTTy nor XP are a problem. You don't have a firewall on your linux machine, so that isn't the problem. About all that is left is the ssh daemon on the linux box or the ethernet interface. If you can connect OUT of your linux box, then the ethernet card is working OK and isn't the problem You also might want to have a look at the output of ifconfig and see if anything looks funky there. If you look in your /var/log/messages file, you should see attempts to log into ssh. If you don't, get on your linux box and try to ssh localhost. If that doesn't work, then I think you are looking at a re-install of ssh.

This is what I get for puTTY:
2004-12-10 15:26:40 Looking up host "192.168.0.99"
2004-12-10 15:26:40 Connecting to 192.168.0.99 port 22

There is nothing the the /var/log/messages file after I attempt to connect through puTTY. This is what i get in the var/log/messages file after I type ssh localhost:

Dec 10 16:35:07 xmans sshd[2142]: Accepted Password for root 127.0.0.1 port 32795 ssh2

What is the best way to uninstall ssh and re-install it none of this works?

That depends on how you installed ssh. You said that you dumped the Slackware version and installed your own. If you compilied from source, and still have that on your disk, you can try make uninstall and hope that works. If it doesn't, you'll have to look at the makefile to figure out where stuff was installed and delete it by hand. If you complied from source and used checkinstall or installed a Slackware package, then removepkg should do the trick.

The messages you posted do suggest that ssh is running on your machine (you can connect from localhost) but it isn't seeing any connections from outside. Since you haven't posted any info about the ethernet card itself, I still view this as a suspect. It would be very possible to have a bad ethernet card and still be able to connect to ssh through localhost.

And finally don't log into ssh as root! Very bad practice.

Reinstall of ssh most likely won't help. Your log
says that the connection opened by putty didn't reach linux box with ssh. It was just lost somewhere in the middle...

Here's a crazy idea. You cannot connect to your Linux box via PuTTY when outside your LAN. You get a log that says:

If I am understanding this correctly, this is the log from a PuTTY that is not in the LAN that has the ssh server. That would mean that you are looking for the wrong IP address.

Maybe I am reading this wrong?

The computer that was trying to connecting to that server was in the LAN and that was the local address. The server has an apache server and people can connect and see it from the outside world. and someone can connect the the linux server through a linux machine. Does that still mean that it could be the ethernet card? How do I get info on my ethernet card?

Another idea, D/L a port scanner for the Windows box and scan 192.168.0.99 . That will tell you if the Slack box is reachable from the Windows box.

I ran one and this is what it says:

Warning: OS detection will be MUCH less reliable because we did not find atleast 1 open and 1 closed TCP port
All 1663 scaned ports on CC <192.168.0.99> are: filtered
MAC Address: 00:0C:6E:38:E2:59 <Asustek Computer>
Too many fingerprints match this host to give specific OS details

Nmap run completed -- 1 IP address <1 host up> scanned in 398.838 second

And I can also connect from the linux box to the windows machine and vice versa through samba

It is very strange that you can connect to linux samba ports from windows machine while your port scanner says that
what means that some intermediate comp in your LAN blocks all these ports.

Can you please show the output of
from windows machine?

When I telnet 192.168.0.99 22 I try and type things but i can't see anything and then after a little while i get SSH-1.99-OpenSSH_3.9p1
Connection to host lost.

When I do the same for 80 i start typing and can't see anything and then i get back to the cmd prompt.

For 139 i can type and still not see and nothing ever happens

Wierd. That means you are able to connect to ssh. It crosses out the words
becase putty should definitely continue these logs, if you see ssh's prompt by telnet ("SSH-1.99-OpenSSH_3.9p1"), and finally show you the login prompt.

It also means that all the things said about blocked network packets were not the case here.
I'm really surprised. The only thing I can suggest after all this - try to get the most up-to-date putty version and try again....