hmm ok i should probably start a new thread for this but heyho. When i boot up into console, i have no network settings established, i have to startx, set network up (the settings always default to wrong ones every reboot), then exit again. How can i write a script or whatever to initialise the network adapter with the right ip, dns server, gateway etc etc. Also i move my computer between networks which is why a script would be good to change what settings.

I looked about and found http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-c...work-card-nic/ but it went a bit over my head cos i dont want to add alias's.

Thanks

DHCP is usually used to setup cable connections (and other broadbands i think). The command is "dhcpcd" or something similar. It will start a DHCP client that will connect to the ISP's DHCP server, and request connection information, it will then use that to setup the connection.

If the command works on the console, just add it to your startup scripts.

no no no i understand all about how dhcp works, networking is nothing new to me just linux is. but i don't want to use dhcp, i want to configure static IP, but the only way i've found of doing this is from the gui.

oh and fyi dhcpcd doesnt work for me.
thanks tho

static ip? This is something i have never seen since i first came to Linux, using Core Linux... what a pain, but since you have a static IP, ill try to recall how this was done (since you know network things, ill let you fill in the blanks).

OK, the main command i saw was "iproute" (ok, the only command, or at least the only one i remember), used to setup the network routing table to connect to the outside. OK, thats all i recall, and also dhcpcd setups the /etc/resolve.conf for DNS queries. Since i was never able to get the network up the static way (probably because i dont have a static IP), i never bothered to really learn it, so thats about all i can say.

edit: ok, i looked at the commands that are installed now, no "iproute", but there is "ip" (might have been used), and "route", which i remember the output looks exactly like what i originally saw.

Um, I think most modern distros are using ifconfig for this. If the card is eth0, then the command would be

just replace the X's with an IP address. You'll almost certainly need root priviliges tho.

I dont get why you would not want a gui? if your looking for a low impact distro check out xubuntu.

Avatar,

Most excellent resource! Thanks for pointing it out.

be aware that one page command thing is for an rpm based distro and many of the commands aren't compatible with debian based distros