I have a Shuttle SS40G system, with a network card that seems to be recognized on install. The system is a dual-boot with Windows XP. (That works fine.) The network card is being reported as: RTL-8139

My problem is I can't get internet access up and going. (And perhaps no network access at all.) I am running through a Linksys Access Point router BEFW1154. The router is set up as a DHCP host.

The Mandrake 9.1 wizard (after install, but before first boot) does detect the ethernet connection. It reports the network device as using driver 8139too. I try to use Automatic IP (bootp/dhcp/zerconf). I am not entering a Zeroconf hostname.

On startup, it seems to hang for awhile on "Bringing up interface eth0" but it does report as okay, and spits out some text too quickly for me to read... it says something about claiming ownership of address... ???.???.???.???. However, the address looks nothing like my available network addresses.

I can ping 127.0.0.1.

I try to use Mandrake Control Center and the Drak connect Wizard. In the Internet Access, I setup the gateway as 192.168.1.1, even though I cannot ping that addy. It does not work, as you might suspect.

In LAN configuration, the eth0 device is the only one that appears, which is fine. The protocol is dhcp, the driver is 8139too, and it reports the state as up. However, it has not IP address listed. When I pull up the LAN configuration in expert, it shows:

IP address [blank]
Netmask: 255.255.255.0
Boot protocol: dhcp
Started on boot: yes
DHCP client: [blank]


When I bring up the GNOME browser... I get nothing as far as being able to find any webpage. Always www.whatever.com can't be found.

All of my windows computers in the house can connect to the router. In fact, when the computer specified boots in Windows mode, it can connect to the network / internet. I am a complete Linux n00b, other than using it as a programming environment at work. I would very much like to get this up and running, but I am frustrated by my lack of knowledge, and the lack of being able to get on the net.

I just got my dialup modem working a second ago - does DHCP deal with DNS resolving too?

I think it's because zeroconf. Turn it off, choose normal DHCP and see if it's better.

How might one turn-off Zeroconf in Mandrake 9.1?

try this at the command line:

dhcpcd eth0

that will turn on dhcp ( note: make sure you put dhcpcd and NOT dhcpd, they are TOTALLY different)


and oh, DHCP does not deal with DNS.

For a short time (will start again at boot), something like
service zeroconf stop
(from console, as root - you can become root by typing 'su' and then entering root password when asked).
To make it permanent, you need to look into MDK configuration tools (into services).

Kmenu -> Configuration -> Boot and Init -> SysV-Init Editor
Know what you are doing

In my experience, using a static ip address saves a lot of headaches. Try setting eth0 to 192.168.1.xxx (after first verifying your router's addy is indeed 192.168.1.1, just to be safe) and try pinging your router. If you can, you should be in the clear.

Also, 'less dmesg' will let you read everything you see at start-up at your leisure.

I got the same prob with mandrake 9.1 and from the command line just doing :
#dhclient eth0
was enough to solve the prob. For the next boot if It doesn't work just create an empty dhclient.conf in /etc. (if it does not exist just do:
#touch dhclient.conf > /etc)
For me it worked good.

If u want to listen to mara and you do not like an init editor (front end for the daemons at boot start stop) u just can do
#chconfig -add dhcpd
viva linux

sorry, like roberto advised don't get confused like me:
chkonfig --add dhcpcd

dhcpcd stands for dhcp client daemon