Hello everyone!

I'm completely new to Linux, just installed Mandrake 10 CE yesterday. Everything worked fine, sound, 3D-acceleration and all. The problem is I can't set up my LAN properly. I have two machines:

1) Desktop Pentium 4 with XP pro connected to internet w USB ADSL modem
2) IBM ThinkPad R40 laptop w XP pro & Mandrake 10.

The two are connected with a crossover cable. When running XP on both I have no trouble connecting. When running Mandrake on the laptop the network wont work. I've used the wizard to set up a connection but it wont work.

With XP on both the settings are:

1) Network bridge, IP 192.168.0.1 / 255.255.255.0 manually configured,
name: henrik.mshome.net
2) Network bridge, IP 192.168.0.2 / 255.255.255.0 using DHCP,
name: pm.mshome.net

These settings I got from running the network wizard in XP.

I cant ping anything from Mandrake. I want to be able to transfer files and use the internet from the laptop.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I propably have set things up the wrong way so any guidance would be of great help.

/HenrikG

I am no expert but... how is your connection again ???

WinXP connects to the ADSL modem with a USB cable I got that much..
But the laptop(Mandrake) connects to what ? how ?

Do you unplug your desktop from the ADSL then try to plug your laptop to the same ADSL modem with an USB ?

or you got a local network going on with a bridge?

The laptop connects to the desktop computer with a crossover cable (LAN). I want to get the network running so it can share the internet connection with the desktop computer running XP. I dont unplug anything.

Thanks,
HenrikG

Hey, I just saw this: When I'm booting it says somehing like

"Starting eth0 ... [error]"

I'm not sure what this is, but it doesn't sound good.

The eth0 error means that there was an error loading the driver for your ethernet card, the eth is for ethernet and the 0 means the first card, if you had more NICs they would be eth1, eth2, etc.
Their could be many reasons that your driver loaded improperly, and your going to have to do some diging to find the culprit.
Try the command 'ifconfig' from a bash prompt, this will list all of your systems configured interfaces, if their is no eth0 than that means your driver hasn't loaded at all.
If you do see something for eth0, than it means that your driver loaded, but incorrectly.
Try this "ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 up"
if your getting the address via dhcp I think the syntax is 'ifup eth0'.
If you don't get any results with that, than your going to have to get another driver for your NIC, depending on the brand you either have to go to the venders website and see if they have linux drivers, or if your lucky, and I mean really Lucky (note the capital 'L') there is support for your driver already on your system, and you just need to build it as a module or compile it into your kernel.
If your using the general Mandrak kernel that's unlikely since distros usually compile EVERYTHING into their kernels, but still it dosen't hurt to check it out.

Hey!
Thats one step in the right direction! I did
"ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 up",
and now I can ping the XP computer! Still I can't access the internet though. What I know about eth0 is:
TCP/IP: static
IP: 192.16.8.0.2
Netmask: 255.255.255.0

To connect to internet should I set the gateway? If so, should it be 192.168.0.1 ? DNS 192.168.0.1 ?
And what is Zeroconf? my laptop is called pm.mshome.net and zeroconf says PM. Is that right?

Thanks a lot!
/HenrikG

Henrik I have just attempted to start using Linux.I think you right with your gateway setting but your DNS(Domain Name Server)is going to be a different address.I called my ISP carrier and they gave me their DNS address numbers that I should use.

If I am not mistaken the Domain Name Server is the server that changes your typed www.whatever.com to a ip address of that web sites server.Without the proper DNS settings you will never get your request through to the web site you are trying to reach.

Sorry about that whatever dot com I wrote I did not realize it was a actual site and did not realize it would auto link it.

Yeah, your right about the gateway, but the DNS needs to be set to whatever your ISP's DNS servers are. You can either ask them, or run an nslookup from a dos prompt under windows while connected.
try 'nslookup www.linuxquestions.org' it will give you two IP addresses, the first will be the address of your ISPs DNS server, and the second is for linuxquestions. I'm sure there is an easier way to get it, but I havn't found it yet.
Oh, and make sure that you are sharing your WinXP boxs internet, under properties hit the advanced tab and make sure your sharing the connection, also if you want you can allow the linux box to start the connection just by trying to access the net. There is not an easy way to end the connection via the linux box however.

Hello again!

Thanks a lot for trying to help me with this. Th problem is sort of solved now. I put my MandrakeMove CD in this morning and the internet was up right away. I figured I could just copy the settings to my MDK 10 installation, but it still wouldn't work. I re-installed MDK to see if it wouldconfigure it properly if the network was up when I installed (it wasn't the last time), but still the same problem.

Now I hav just finished installing Mandrake 9.2, and everything worked right away! So, again thank you, I don't know what was the problem exactly, but since 9.2 is working I will go with that.

HenrikG