Im a total linux newb... Just installed it today... Seems pretty much like windows. Im using mandrake linux 10, And Im trying to set up my network. I have a 4 port dlink cable ethernet router with 2 windows xp compuers and an xbox, with my new linux computer. I ran the new connection wizards, tried everything on lan, and cable settings, I set my network ip adress to 192.168.0.154, my networks ip range is 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.0.255, and I have all the subnet masks to 255.255.255.0, and my DHCP server on the 2 windows computers are 192.168.0.1, and my gateway is 192.168.0.1 to connect all 3 computers through the router. I set my DNS servers on my linux box to 207.69.188.185 and 207.69.188.185 < The same as my windows DNS Servers.


Im not sure if any of that means anything to this situation, in all the internet settings is says "Not connected"... How do I make it "Connected" ? I plugged it in to the router... the green lights are solid on the pci ethernet card, everything is plugged in, I cannot ping the windows computers, and the windows computers come back with "request timed out."


I thought linux was supposed to be easy to network, you just plug it in and it goes, but I just cant seem to get it working, Can anybody help me?

you probably want to configure mandrake to use dhcp to get the ip address and dns info for your linux system. i haven't used mandrake in a while, but go back to where you set up the ip address and dns and select dhcp instead.

dhcp is a protocol that routers use to assign ip addresses and other network settings automatically.

to make sure everything is working, open a shell (equivilent of windows command prompt) and type "ifconfig" (roughly equivilent to windows ipconfig). that should list your ip address. and other info.

if that doesn't help, ur network card driver may not be loaded. this is getting complicated. type "lsmod" as root (type "su" and enter the root/administrator password you set up during install to switch to the root user)...that lists the driver modules that are currently being used by the linux kernel. you may need to do a google search to figure out what your network card module would be called. if it is in that list, the driver is loaded. if not, do "modprobe <network driver module name that you found on google>" as root. if that works, you need to add the network card driver name as a new line in "/etc/modules" for the network to start on boot automatically from now on (you need to be root to edit this file, type

su -c "gedit /etc/modules"

good luck.

Okie, No success. I reset my IP settings, tried the broser, no luck. The shell also does not have the command "ipconfig". I then assumed that my network card was not loaded, and I guess it was not, because I went into the hardware profile, and it had my network card module name as "Fealnx". So I looked in the lsmod, and It was not there. So I "modprobe fealnx"ed. Then I added fealnx to the modules file. I tried browser, no luck. Tried ping 192.168.0.1 "Network unreachable". So I tried ping www.aol.com "unknown host www.aol.com". Quadroople Quadroople check the connections... Check, everything is plugged in. So I restarted my system... tried the browser, no luck, redid the ping, no luck.

Are problems like this common?
Do I need to download any drivers and put them somewhere on my linux box?
Dont have a clue what to do. Please help

still cant figure it out.

the interface info command in linux is "ifconfig" (yes that is if, not ip).

this kind of sux, but i don't know what else to tell you. read through these howtos about linux networking (or go to the mandrake site and see if you can find docs on setting up the network properly using the mandrake tools).

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/doc...Net-HOWTO.html
i think sections 4,5, and 6 will be helpful

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/doc...iew-HOWTO.html
this may not be as helpful, but there is some good info

Oh my god. Thank you soo much for the first link. It helped alot. I got it working. I just scrolled down the page, looking for some routing config commands, and I found this.

root# ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.10 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
root# route add -net 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 eth0
root# route add default gw 192.168.1.1 eth0

So I added that into the command prompt with the 192.168." 1 ".X taken out, so its like 192.168.0.X and It worked. Im now connected to the internet. Thanks for the help.

Ok, So I just restarted, how do I add those commands, so they execute every time I restart? So it is always on?

Ok, I decided to google it, and not demand answers from you guys. Here is what I have found. The profile script in the /etc folder boots on startup for any user. Since im trying to transfer to linux, from windows, I am baffled by all this code. I can almost understand it, but am fairly new to code, and scripts too. I could not figure i out. So, I am guessing I have to add my 3 lines of code to etc/profile

I have the code that I want to input to the startup sequence, And I want to add it to etc/profile. I still cannot find out how to add it? I tried editing it in KWrite, and It says I cannot save cause I dont have access to this file. I know I have to enter it through the terminal/shell. I just cannot find the command to add that code to that particular file under #root.

Heh... What do you know, I re ran the administer my computer, and re-inputed some info, and badda bing- badda- boom. I restarted to see if it realy took affect, and Under verbose, it did not say eth0 failed, it said eth0 ok. Login, and everything is working great. Thanks for the links, As I read through them, I realy learned alot about networking and linux. Thanks lots.

glad i could help.

have fun with ur new os ;-)

when u get a bit more comfortable with the shell, consider switching to debian testing. it's much nicer in terms of getting updates and is known for tight and fast security updates. i have to say that i wish i switched to debian a long time ago. the debian forum here is always very helpful too.