I agree. If you just want to experiment with DHCP, its good exercise, but otherwise just choose two static (fixed) IPs. There are some numbers set aside that DHCP also uses. If you set up DHCP editing dhcpd.conf directly, you are probably aware of the range. If not, I use numbers like 192.168.0.12 or 192.168.0.24 or any one starting with 192.168.0. and you use netmask 255.255.255.0. You can set this up in the any of the Network Device or Network desktop configurators.
DHCP uses a server and client and does work on these machines. That could be what got fouled up. Better to just put them out of the picture. Were you using DHCP as a necessary part of your internet connection? Better to use Masquerade, then you have a nice firewall going at the same time. There is an excellent tutorial here:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/IP-Masquer...WTO/index.html
You should know there is at least one error at the HOWTO there, you are supposed to chmod
two scripts there, not just one. Here is the page with the ommited chmod,
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/IP-Masquer...-examples.html
Otherwise it worked with just a little fussing.