Tonight I installed FC3 seemingly without a hitch until once installed I found I couldn't connect to the internet. Firefox will not access any pages, so I went to terminal and tried to ping, but after a few minutes I cancelled that because I wasn't getting a response (tried pinging google).

Normally, I have DHCP (which is how I set it up during installation), but I tried running the internet connection wizard and to set the IP, subnet, and gateway numbers manually with the numbers I know to be correct (from setting this up before on a different distro), but still no connection.

Eth0 is active. The card is recognized. I tried ifconfig from terminal as root but it seems the root password works in the GUI but not in terminal (which is weird????). So I can't gain root access in the terminal which I tried to do the two ways I know how---straight login and sudo.

I have a little experience with Linux and Unix, but I'm definitely no expert (I'm just a measly cook at some restaurant), so please feel free to talk to me as simply as you can.

Thanks for anyone's help.

su will always let you eneter the root password, but either way you can run ifconfig as non root, it just won't be on your path... /sbin/ifconfig. also show the output of /sbin/route. also see if you can ping by ip address, if not by name. if that's the case then you need to add dns servers to /etc/resolv.conf

do you try to connect to the internet via a router?

Thanks for your help.

First, I do connect via a router with two computers attached: one with FC3 and one OS X.

Both files /sbin/ifconfig and /sbin/route are binary files and so the output wasn't very clear. (editing this: I typed in cat ifconfig and realized that these were not text files. what command should i enter to provide you with the information you need? also, when I typed in ifconfig and route as commands, bash tells me 'command not found').

I pinged an ip number and it was successful. The IP is a friend's computer which he uses to host a small family website. So I went back to firefox and typed in his IP number and his website loaded perfectly. But actual domain names do not work, like www.google.com or any other, doesn't work: I get timed out responses in firefox and am unable to ping them in terminal.

The result of /etc/resolv.conf is

search company.com
nameserver 192.168.1.1

How do I add DNS to that? Not familiar with DNS at all.

just add another nameserver a.b.c.d entry... these really should be being supplied by your ISP though, is your router dishing you out dhcp? if so that will normally also relay your dns requests to the isp's name servers, which might explain why 192.168.1.1 is in there.. is that your router address? if so you'd do better to get the name servers inserted into your router, and then everything on the internal systems will get configured right automatically.

not sure i understand, but i will try and post back tomorrow, thanks

sorry about my ignorance, but, I should call up my isp, ask them what the nameserver is, then edit the file typing in after nameserver the info my isp gives me? also, is that what you mean by inserting the nameserver in the router, by editing that file? and do I replace whatever nameserver the isp gives me with the ip 192... that's in there?

ok, you CAN replace the 192.168.1.1 but i would guess that that is actually the address of the router you have. you should be able to configure your router via some sort of http interface to it...

your ISP's name servers would be the fastest, so the most desirable. if you are using windows too, just run ipconfig in windows and it will show what your DNS IP's are.

now if you do edit those IP addresses directly, you may well find that next time you boot your router has told your linux box to over write those details. in which case i'd suggest spending a little time adding those details to your router instead.

acid_kewpie, thank you so much for your help. i'm writing this from the linux box, which means i am connected to the internet. I went into the router via firefox http like you suggested, called the isp, got necessary info, and am connected. you are awesome. thank you.