I have a machine with a NIC card, running into an LinkSys router and then to a Motorola SB5101 Surfboard cable modem. ( i.e. I'm sitting behind the LinkSys router.)

I've tried both Suse and Ubantu (latest distros) and have an identical problem with both.

When I fire up Firefox ( or Konsole ) in order to browse the web I can enter any address I'd like to go to ( ex: Microsoft.com or Yahoo.com or Google.com etc. ) and the system will take me to that site's home page. So far so good.

Herein lies the problem: Once the selected site comes up I am unable to surf not only within the selected site but to any other site either. Looking ( in Firefox for example ) under the File menu I see that the 'Work Offline' option is checked.

Naturally I figured I could un-check this and then continue surfing. Not so. Anytime I un-check this and try to do anything I can't. Whenever I go back and check, the 'Work Offline' option has been re-selected. I't stuck on 'Work Offline', although I'm sure this is just a symptom of the underlying problem.

I have tried eliminating the router from the picture (going directly from the NIC to the modem) without success.

From what I've read, configuring Linux via a NIC and a cable modem should just about be a 'no brainer' ( easy ) but you can't prove it by me!

It just occurred to me that whenever I've installed either distro I've had the router hooked up. Could it be that the installers can't 'see' my internet connection/modem because of the router and therefore aren't setting things up properly?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

1. How is your modem configured - does it do the connection and authentication on its own, or does the computer need to do that?

2. How is your router configured? Will it dispense IP addresses via DHCP? Do you have an "IP conflict" (two or more machines are given the same IP)?

3. It's very important to separate connection problems (no connection at all) from name resolution problems and default gateway problems. While name resolution isn't working, try pinging a number of static internet addresses that you may know.