> I've been given distrib disks for SUSE 6.3 and have my card configured and network
> assigned/active to eth0 and DHCP selected yet netscape gives me a message that I
> may have a problem with my name server and may need to config SOCKS. Ping would
> not reach my router, should it have?
Ping should reach your router. Check your network card, driver/module, cabling, make sure the router is on and that you have connection indicator lights on both your nic and your router - these indicate good connection of cable and basic datalink recognition between the network tranceivers.
Basic steps for networking.
You need to:
1. have a network card installed and cables connected - don't use crossover cable to connect to a hub or router.
2. know what your network card driver module is named.
3. modprobe or insmod this module (possibly setting module parameters).
4. do an: ifconfig and see if eth0 shows up in the list with a valid ip address. You may need to do an: ifconfig eth0 up or ifconfig eth0 down as necessary.
5. try to ping another machine by ip address - local machine or one on the internet. If ping works then the network card, module, configuration and cable is working. If not then replace cables, network card, modify configuration until you can ping it by ip addy.
6. try to ping another machine by name. If this works then name resolution is working.
YaST or linuxconf are both good tools to configure your linux box. You may need to configure dhcpcd for dynamic ip/dns assignments or set a static ip/dns configuration.
Ping your router first. If you can't get that then you must troubleshoot that before you can proceed. If you can ping your router then configure the router and make sure you change it's default password. Make sure the router is getting it's own ip address settings from your ISP then try to ping an internet ip address outside the local net. Then try to ping by name and fix your dns settings if this doesn't work.
Try different clients like: ping, traceroute, links, mozilla, lynx, netscape 4.x, netscape 6+, opera, etc...
Happy Networking to you!
