I hope someone can help,..here it goes.

My computer has a Realtek ethernet card. When I try to ping the router, I'm given the message 'Network is unreachable'. I have a windows box, on the same computer, and it is able to connect. I've tried connecting to the router with Mandrake by using the GUI menus that Mandrake provides,..that didn't work either (I'm a newbie).

when I type /sbin/ifconfig this is the reply the konsole gives me:

eth0 ..Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:3F:81:10:91
..........UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
..........RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
..........TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
..........collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
..........RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
..........Interrupt:17 Base address:0x1800
.....................................
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
..........inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
..........UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
..........RX packets:126 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
..........TX packets:126 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:10
..........collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
..........RX bytes:8174 (7.9 kb) TX bytes:8174 (7.9 b)

I've looked on several message boards, I haven't been able to connect to the internet at all because of this problem, and since my laptop has a winmodem.

Oh yeah,...the router I'm trying to connect to is a Microsoft MN 700, that my philowindow parents bought, much to my dissapointment.
also,...I'm a newbie.

Any advice is much appreciated.

What exact model of realtek is it? Show us the output of lspci -v.

The first step to getting network working is to load the appropriate driver. This looks like it has been already done since the eth0 interface comes up. Then the next step depends on whether you've got DHCP or static IPs.

the devices found were a Realtek ethernet controller, an RTL9139 (family first ethernet nic), and an unknown ethernet controller device, which my windows box tells me is an Atheros AR5001X Mini Pc wireless adapter.

So are you saying it's wireless or windows misdetected it? Secondly, are you sure it's a 9139 and not an 8139? Also, it's possible you're alredy got a driver loaded. Could you post the output of lsmod? Then try a dhclient eth0 and try the network just to see what happens.

It's a wireless card, windows was able to detect both cards. Linux was able to detect both cards as well,...but it was only able to identify the realtek card. You are right,...the card is an RTL8139

lsmod
when I give the command 'lsmod',..the konsole says, 'command not found'.
I found a file called 'modinfo', in the /sbin directory, but when i tried the 'ls' command on it,...nothing showed up. I'm new at this,..but maybe I'm not doing something quite right

dhcclient eth0
same thing (I'm so embarrased). 'command not found'. I found a '/dhclient' in the '/sbin' directory, when I tried using the 'ls'command,...it only showed '/sbin/dhclient'.

I'm very new to Linux, I'm not sure how to do what you want me to do. I'm sure I must be doing something wrong. Is there a read command?

You have to be root to run dhclient. You can be any user to run lsmod but only root has it in their PATH (it's a system variable present also in DOS/Windows systems that lets you run commands without typing in the entire path). Type su at the prompt and give your root password when prompted. You'll now be root. Retype the commands. If it still gives you a "command not found" then type the whole path (ie /sbin/lsmod instead of just lsmod). Post the output of lsmod here if dhclient eth0 doesn't work.

sorry if my replies are a bit late. I am involved in the final week of my classes at school. I was able to run both 'dhclient eth0' and 'lsmod'

dhclient etho

the konsole displays a message:

DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 tp 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval (random number)

it will display this line about 6 times, then it displays :

No DHCPOFFERS recieved.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.

lsmod

I'm not really sure what you want to see from lsmod,..but a lot of information comes out when I typ that commad. since I'm connected to the internet from a different computer,..I would have to retype everthing, so that you could see it. There is information on the kehyboard, ntfs, floppy drive, etc. etc. Could you specify what information you want?

I was looking for a network driver. It looks like its already loaded but I was just curious. There should be a line "8139too" there. Since dhclient didn't work I'll assume you don't have a DHCP server. You'll have to specify a static address. Is this entirely your network? If so, pick a nice one and use it like so: ifconfig eth0 up <IP address>. If it's not your network, contact the administrator for a valid IP address.