Disclaimer: I just installed Slackware 14.1, and I have never used any kind of Linux OS before, nor have I done any kind of networking.
Here's the goal: Internet Router -(WiFi)- Windows 7 laptop -(Ethernet)- Slackware desktop

I know this question has been asked before (on this forum and others), because I've spent the last three days googling how to do this. All of the explanations I've found rely on a base of Slackware/Linux/networking knowledge I just don't have yet, and I can't download new packages and learn about this stuff without an internet connection. I'd really appreciate an ultra-beginners guide to setting up this kind of connection. If anyone has a link to an existing guide/answer (one that doesn't rely entirely on phrases like "check the contents of /etc/resolv.conf";
"Are you setting this address statically or are you using dhcpcd?"; or "If you are setting it statically you need to run the route command."), I'd happily use that too.

Thank you all in advance for your help.

Greetings and...whew! Please believe me that I am saying this in all kindness and sincerity and with a non-judgmental attitude. I happen to actually believe that none of us knows these details a priori and if a person isn't a "noob" at something that person is probably lacking in ambition and reach.

Maybe there are others on here who will help you "paint by numbers" and I'll take a stab at it, but I can't help but wonder why you chose Slackware when the Ubuntus (and just about everybody else) does all that stuff for you with Windows-like "wizards". The simple facts are that it is faster to do networking by command line and this implies at least some basic knowledge of commands and locations of pertinent files.

For example "/etc/resolv.conf" corresponds to the DNS boxes in a windows-like Network Device TCPIP section. It tells your system the addresses of the primary and secondary Domain Name Servers, either the default ones from your ISP or a service like OpenDNS, which some people find yields a "snappier" Internet experience since DNS is the translator that converts human language like "Yahoo.com" into machine friendly numbers like "207.69.42.20". So "/etc/resolv.conf" can be quite important to the task you've set for yourself.

It is possible as long as you know what your Nic's designation is, for example whether it is "eth0" or "eth1" to be up and running with 2 or 3 commands, mainly "ifconfig" and "route" especially if you're creating a static IP for your Slack Box on your internal network. This assumes you know the IP address of your router, commonly 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.0. This will become your Gateway address on your slack box. If you become good at stringing command switches with appropriate addresses you can set IP, Netmask and Default Gateway with just one command - ifconfig. Some prefer to separate Gateway into a 3rd command since (no need for strict sequence here - one could set DNS anytime having no effect on IP, Netmask and Gateway.

The easiest way for a beginner to setup an ethernet driven Internet connection is to simply edit 2 files, the aforementioned "/etc/resolv.conf" and "/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf" and this is because Patrick and the team have put lots of nice comments in it to help you decide what you need. Here is an unedited one with the exception that I snipped off the bottom half for interfaces you said you don't need for this project

If you look at the line "USE_DHCP[0]=" you'll see that by default it is already answered for you as "Yes" if you chose DHCP during Slackware Installation. This means if your router is set to DHCP, where it dispenses leases on IPs (complete with Netmask, and Gateway) you're done! It will just boot up and connect ba-da-boom, ba da bing! If instead you prefer static just put the numbers in there in the provided spaces and change "yes" to "no".

All the preliminary scary stuff was just to demonstrate how easy it can be if you knew ahead of time, during installation, what manner of connection you would have, defined by how your router is setup. It's not rocket surgery. It just require you be willing to learn a little something at least about nomenclature of TCPIP terms.

I sincerely hope the clock telling me it is 2AM isn't sniggering at my foggy brain and I have managed to help you some. In any case, best wishes and hope you stick with Slackware...it's worth the learning curve many times over.

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Welcome to LQ!

Your internet router is almost certainly configured to act as a DHCP server.

1. Connect router and Slackware desktop with ethernet cable after powering down both devices.
2. Turn on router.
3. Turn on Slackware desktop, (booting to runlevel 3 and a login prompt which is the install default), and log in as root.
4. Type 'netconfig' and hit Enter.
5. A box will open titled "ENTER HOSTNAME". This will become the name of your Slackware desktop on your network. I suggest something short, 8 characters or less.
6. A box will open titled "ENTER DOMAINNAME for '<your hostname choice>'. In a home network this can be your choice. I use 'home.net.au'.
7. A box will open titled "CONFIGURATION TYPE FOR '<your hostname choice>.<your domainname choice>'. Select DHCP.
8. A box will open titled "SET DHCP HOSTNAME". Just hit Enter.
9. A box will open titled "CONFIRM SETUP COMPLETE". Select Yes.
10. A box will open saying "Settings accepted. Basic network configuration is complete." Hit Enter.
11. The root command prompt will reappear.
12. Type '/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 restart' and hit Enter.
You should see something like this:
Enjoy!

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Welcome to LinuxQuestions.

By default Windows 7 ICS will use the 192.168.137.x subnet and has a built in DHCP server.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...#1TC=windows-7

Follow the other posts for setting up the network connection on your slack box with DHCP and you should be good to go.

First of all, thank you all for your quick and full replies. I feel a lot more comfortable about learning how to use Slackware knowing there's a very supportive community out there. Reading your responses, I found that I learned about both how Slackware handles networking and certain concrete steps I could take to connect to the internet. That said, this pesky network configuration problem doesn't seem to want to go away, so I'll address the results of trying the above suggestions.
You're completely right in wondering about that, because I sometimes wonder about it myself. I knew perfectly well that using Ubuntu or another distro would be a lot easier considering my lack of basic knowledge, but I still chose to use Slackware for two reasons: (1) by making the learning curve very steep, I hoped to gain much more from the learning experience, and (2) I hoped that I would find good documentation and helpful and knowledgeable people in forums like this. So far, I have found both my assumptions to be correct, as I've learned a lot already about vi, router settings, the command line, and much much more; and all of your in-depth answers have shown that there is a community of interested and caring people out there.

This file seems to be entirely blank, except for the domain name I chose when I tried allend's solution. When I first looked at the file, it only had two commented lines, saying something like "/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf.head could be replaced here" and "/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf.tail could be replaced here"

When I took a look at the /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf file, the "USE_DHCP[0]" option was already set to "yes", (and my router is set to DHCP)so the connection should've worked the first time around. I also tried setting eth1, 2, and 3 to yes, to no avail.

I can't connect my desktop to the router directly, but I followed the steps, only to get an error message indicating a timeout when the connection failed.

On my Windows 7 machine, I have enabled sharing the wireless connection and have set the both TCP/IPv4and TCP/IPv6 to "Obtain an IP address automatically".

Thank you all for your help, and I hope this is just a simple problem that can easily be fixed (because after that comes package management!).

How are you connecting your slackware machine to the Windows machine?

A direct ethernet connection (running a cable directly from one machine to another) won't work unless you are using a special cable.

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Good point. Depends on the age your computer/ethernet adapters. Most these days are able to auto detect a connection. If you do not see any link lights on the adapters then you need a ethernet crossover cable.

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Hi,

Welcome to LQ & Slackware!

Barking Shark, look at Slackware Doc Project & http://slackbook.org/beta/

Look at my sig for more useful links.

Hope this helps.

I am using an enhanced CAT5 ethernet patch cable, so not a crossover cable according to my googling. The cable, however, worked perfectly fine when I had Windows running on both machines. Is the problem then in the way that the Linux machine interprets the data coming across the cable?

The laptop is fourish years old and the desktop 10 (old, but not that old). Both adapters have lit link lights.

No, this should be at the hardware level. If it worked for one OS, it should work for another.

In your case, consider my cable comment to be a red herring. Sorry for the noise.

What is the output of the following command when run as root from a terminal?

A standard DHCP server should provide the information for your DHCP client to fill this in automatically. The DHCP server that is underneath Windows 7 ICS may not provide that information.



If your desktop was connected to your router, that would apply. However, you are connecting to your Windows 7 box and that is what will provide DHCP services for your linux desktop.


Please change the line in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf to be and enter the following command as root: You should see something along the lines of......but if you did, you wouldn't be having any problems. There should also be useful logs in /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog.

I obviously can't copy and paste from the Slackware machine onto here, so I'll attach these more manual screenshots. I also just noticed that there's an icon on the Xfce desktop that says "Ethernet Network | Wired connection 1". I'm not entirely sure which are the important bits from the /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog log files, but I attached what seemed to be relevant. Please let me know if there's something I should be looking out for, and thank you once again for your dedication to solving this problem.

Attached Thumbnails

     

Ah. Do you intend to use NetworkManager to connect or by editing /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf? The two mechanisms are different.