I just tried installing 12.2 on my old 350 mhz machine. With the first boot, I got that error when the system/ifconfig was trying to make a connection to the internet.
I went ahead and logged in as root and tried running dhclient eth0, but got the same response. I tried running "ifconfig eth0 up" and got the same thing.
I can ping localhost, 127.0.0.1, etc, but nothing outside obviously.
Now what? This is a new one for me. I believe there was something about SIOCSIFFLAGS also.
I even tried adding my nameserver address to /etc/resolv.conf, rebooted to see if that would work, but while booting, I saw the same problem.
I'm connected to internet via cable modem and wireless router. Connection works great on the 350 with OpenBSD/FreeBSD/Debian.
What do I do to fix this.
Thanks

Have you run the 'netconfig' script?

Yes, and have checked /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf
Gotta head for work

Is your hardware being recognised? If you have a PCI network card, it should be listed by 'lspci'. If it is an ISA card, you may have to edit /etc/rc.d/rc.modules.

Regarding the SIOCSIFFLAGS message, you might have an interrupt conflict. Perhaps the following will help:

SIOCSIFFLAGS: Device or resource busy

Before shutting the machine down to leave for work, I manually entered nameserver addresses in /etc/resolv.conf. I just booted tonight and I can ping outside addresses. I will try other programs but it appears to be working ok now, and ifconfig shows eth0 as "UP"
Thanks for all the help/advice.