I've done a brief search but I can't find exactly how to fix this problem, it's a bit more complicated than the title suggests...
I've inherited a laptop from work which has Suse10.0 on it. I have root priviliges, and I deleted the original user account and made my own. Strangely, I cannot connect to the internet (firefox, though I don't think that makes any difference). What puzzles me is that when I log in as root I can connect to the internet just fine. Is there something obvious I need to change? There is no evidence of a pre-existing proxy configuration script or anything like that.

Have you checked what groups you are in as user? Also, it would help people respond to your problem if you would post any error messages that come up. Good Luck.
~Tunin

More information on your networking setup would be useful. Such as how the connection to the internet is made. For example, do you go through a NAT router, or are you connected directly to a cable modem, etc.

Use /sbin/ifconfig to check if your interface has an IP address. Cat out /etc/resolv.conf to check if your ISP's name server addresses are present.
Look at the output of /sbin/route and see if you have a default route setup.

I'm connecting to the internet through a router, not a cable modem. I don't get an error message as such, firefox just reports that it cannot find the webpage.
I don't appear to have an ip address for eth0, so that's obviously a problem. Normally I just do a dhcpcd -k to auto assign the ip address, but that won't work.
Cat /etc/resolv.conf shows an old work domain that is no longer in use.
Should I edit the resolv.conf file or something?

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=252110
You may want to check out the last post on this thread. It is based on Suse 9.2, but may have something you haven't tried.
~tunin