Internet problem with vista/slackware dual boot

jobleep · 03-11-2009, 08:25 AM

I access the internet through my college. They require us to register our mac addresses and then they supply an IP address, which is always the same, the same one is pulled up every time. I don't use a router, I just plug the ethernet cable straight into the wall.

I had been using slackware for the last four months as the standalone OS for my computer and I experienced no problems. A few days ago, I had to install windows vista, needed some applications which I couldn't get on slack. The thing is that I can use the net in vista, it works fine. But on slackware, once I use, dhcpcd eth0, it only lets me access the sites on the intranet. I just can't use the internet. This is the output of ifconfig -a after tring to browse. As you can see, there are errors under the RX packets field, weren't there before (before vista).

Code:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1f:c6:67:a6:59
          inet addr:172.16.19.31  Bcast:172.16.19.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::21f:c6ff:fe67:a659/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:777 errors:12 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:12
          TX packets:58 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:94168 (91.9 KiB)  TX bytes:8396 (8.1 KiB)
          Interrupt:20 Base address:0xdead

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

Again, the local network is fine during this time. For the internet, I have to turn off the computer for something like six hours before I can use it on slackware. Now yes, that makes it seem like it's a problem with the providers, BUT...

Today, I booted into slackware (after six hours), and made sure that the internet was working fine. Then I plugged out the ethernet cable and booted into vista. Again, all this time, vista has on contact with the server, as the cable is plugged out. I reboot into slack, plug in the cable, and the same problem occurs. I think that there must be something. There must be some setting that I can change on the ethernet card to make this thing work... I really need some help badly. This thing is getting really frustrating, I can't work properly. My friends who are using other distros haven't really had any problems like this. So I think that maybe it's got something to do with the way that slack works with the ethernet card.

bgeddy · 03-11-2009, 09:58 AM

This may be a problem with dhcpcd which has caused problems for some people. It at least looks like either your default gateway is not being set or the DNS servers are not being set. All this should be set via dhcp. At one of the times when Slackware cannot get onto the internet try running this:

Code:

/sbin/route -n

and this:

Code:

cat /etc/resolv.conf

and post back what you get. As I said it looks like your gateway may not be getting setup or a DNS problem.

Quote:

But on slackware, once I use, dhcpcd eth0, it only lets me access the sites on the intranet.

You shouldn't have to run this - rather change /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf so the first bit looks like this :

Code:

# Config information for eth0:
IPADDR[0]=""
NETMASK[0]=""
USE_DHCP[0]="yes"
#DHCP_HOSTNAME[0]=""
DHCP_HOSTNAME[0]=""

(or just run netconfig as root and tell the system to use dhcp). Some people have a problem with timings in dhcpcd and have to change /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1. Look for this line in the file :

Code:

 # 30 seconds should be a reasonable default DHCP timeout.  60 was too much.  :-)
        echo "/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1:  /sbin/dhcpcd -d -t ${DHCP_TIMEOUT[$i]:-30} ${DHCP_OPTIONS} ${1}" | $LOGGER
        /sbin/dhcpcd -d -t ${DHCP_TIMEOUT[$i]:-30} ${DHCP_OPTIONS} ${1}

and change to this :

Code:

 # 30 seconds should be a reasonable default DHCP timeout.  60 was too much.  :-)
        echo "/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1:  /sbin/dhcpcd -d -t ${DHCP_TIMEOUT[$i]:60} ${DHCP_OPTIONS} ${1}" | $LOGGER
        /sbin/dhcpcd -d -t ${DHCP_TIMEOUT[$i]:-30} ${DHCP_OPTIONS}  t${1}

if you want to try this.

grunt547 · 04-04-2009, 02:56 AM

I see that the address you have been given, 172.16.X.X, is an RFC1918 private network. This might be on purpose, depending on your school's net policy, but I wonder, does Vista get the same address from DHCP? If it does, then you might check that DNS is working, or that your /etc/resolv.conf includes a "lookup bind" line. If Vista gets a different address than Slack, then DHCP is your problem.