redhat9 and dhcp = tearin my hair out!
 

I can not seem to connect to my lan or the internet using RH9 no matter what I try. Some background: I have a static IP from my provider plugged into my D-Link DI-604 router. The router is serving dhcp for the 4 other (Windows) computers on my network. I am attempting to setup RH9 on my Compaq Presario (533 MHz K6-2) using a 3Com 3c905c-TX. I've tested the setup by installing WinXP (works fine) and then Gentoo Linux (connects if static IP assigned) but I can't get anywhere with RH. Ifconfig shows eth0 is recognized and up but dhcp doesn't work. I tried setting a static IP for RH but that doesn't work either. I'm new enough to Linux that I'm not real sure exactly where to start troubleshooting. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

just try
ifup eth0

Do you see any errors/messages concerning eth0 when you boot? If so, tell us exactly what they are.

Can you not even ping the IP of the router?

ifconfig reports eth0 is UP an RUNNING but no, I can't even ping the router. As long as I set a static IP, I get no errors on start up. If I attempt to use dhcp, I simply get a "failed" message (dhclient times out).

i don't know exactly how does dhclient works... but pump does the work for me

PROBLEM SOLVED!!! :p (Well Sort of...) It didn't even occur to me to indicate that the ethernet connection was coming through a switch. To me a switch just "magically" shares bandwith among computers...never really had to think about it much...it just always worked. The main line from my router comes into my office and into a small D-Link DSS 5+ switch which then connects to my two computers. Apparently, RH9 doesn't like something about the switch. When I plugged the main line directly into the RH box, it took right off. The minute I plugged it back into the switch, it died. So now I know WHAT the problem is, I just don't know if there is any way to fix it. Gentoo was able to connect through the switch (although I had to assign a static IP). Any thoughts on why RH9 is having the problem? Is there anything I can try that might allow me to use this switch or am I going to be forced to dump it and go with another brand or perhaps a hub? I'm not really sure how it works but, it doesn't have an uplink port. Documentation says something about Auto-MDI or some such.