My set up: a few FC2 machines with NICs connected to a Modem/Router giving net access, all working.
I recently installed Sarge 3.1r0a from CDs on one machine. It detected the NIC and started to download the distro from the net which I stopped. I repeated the install a few times for various reasons.
Following the last install, the system is unable to find the NIC (it did after the previous install).
I installed the firewall "Guarddog" but following this problem I disabled it (makes no difference). I can't even ping the machine (192.168.1.13), I get a message "Network unreachable." although "Network Settings" shows it is configured, here are the settings:
"Activate when computer starts" checked
"Configuration" Manual (nothing set at install)
IP address 192.168.1.13
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
Gateway address 192.168.1.1

These settings are the ones given automatically by the router under previous distros (FC2 and Windows XP).

The logs show the card was found at boot time (eth0: RealTek RTL8139 ....Identified 8139 chip type 'RTL- 8100'), I get the same result using kernel 2.4.27 or 2.6.8 coming with the distro and I re-booted at every try. I send this from another machine on the same lan (same modem/router).

Can anyone suggest how to tackle this problem, what to look for.

Thank you for your help.

Are you using more than one NIC in the machine?

If so, make sure that eth0 is indeed assigned to the "right" NIC - you might simply listening on the "wrong" input.

The order in which the NICs are assigned to eth0, eth1 etc. might differ from distro to distro. I think it depends on the order in which the NICs are detected by the system.

shows the MAC address of the ethernet card for each ethX interface (the MAC addresse is usually printed on the ethernet card somewhere). This way you can find out which card is used for eth0, eth1, etc.

I'm not sure if there is a way to force eth0 to a specific NIC... Anyone?

Thanks vimico, there is only one NIC in the machine. I'll re-install because there are other problems like the screen freezing and having to reboot after having left the machine idle for a while and some other glitches like the machine "loosing" the printer. This install is anything but stable.