OK first off I'm not sure what the actual problem is (if it is a DNS issue or not), but I'll tell you what I'm experiencing.

First off, I started my laptop (Slackware 10) with my wireless card installed. I'm having problems with my router (wireless, wired works fine) and I've noticed that if I start the laptop with the wireless card in, and then pull it out, and then plug in my Ethernet cable, I can't directly connect to the network/internet. However, if I restart and leave the wireless card OUT, everything is set up. But I don't want to have to restart if I pull the card out while the laptop is on.

So I did this:

ifconfig eth1 192.168.1.109 netmask 255.255.0.0
route add default gw 192.168.1.1

I preferably just wanted dhcp to assign an IP address, but I didn't know how to do that, and I knew 192.168.1.109 would work

So now, I can ping my router (192.168.1.1) and I can ping and visit websites but ONLY by their ip address.

Any tips to point me in the right direction?

you need to find the "networking" or "network" script and restart it. Normally its in /etc/init.d/. EX: /etc/init.d/networking restart This will detect and reload the current interface you have plugged in/running. Also the command "pump" reissues a dhcp request to the dhcp server, to obtain a new IP.

there is no /etc/init.d directory. also, pump is not a valid command
i did "whereis network" and "whereis networking" but nothing..

OK I remembered something I did before, when I was trying to configure my wireless card. (Actually, I had blogged it Thank goodness for blogs).

"dhcpcd eth1"

and all is good.