Here's what I've got. A Windows 98 machine that is hooked up to a hub, a cable modem hooked into the hub and a Mandrake 9.1 machine hooked into the hub.

Here's what's happening. The Windows machine can acess the internet. The Mandrake one used to be able to. I reinstalled Mandrake on a bigger hard drive and added some packages. Since then I haven't been able to access the internet.

When I would access it before it would have the same IP address (at least when i when to an outside site like whatismyip.com). I don't know if that makes a difference or not. I've searched around a ton and asked a friend of mine who's a little better at Linux than I am but we haven't been able to fix it. Can some one please give me some step by step troubleshooting ideas?

I'm really new to Linux but I love it already, I just need a veteran to hold my hand in the beginning. I've been working on this for almost a week and I'm starting to get frustrated. Thanks everyone.

It sounds like you need a router. I was having a similar issue with 2 windows machines and a hub when I first got my cable modem. The only options I had were to get a router or to pay an extra $5-$6 a month for a second IP address, and since I have an old laptop also that I use once and a while I went for the router. Hope this helps.

Well, I thought about that but it was working before. I don't ever use both computers at the same time so it shouldn't matter if they have the same IP address. If it was working before there has to be something I can do to make it work again.

I forgot to mention that until I went and got a router every time I wanted to switch machines I had to disconnect the first machine, turn off the cable modem for about 30 secs, and then connect the second machine.

Well, when it was working I never had to do that. I specifically checked it and I could browse a webpage on the Linux machine then walk into the other room and browse other pages on the Windows machine. They never screwed each other up. it worked for a few days then it quit working after I re-installed. Any more ideas?

Well I've just about exhausted my knowledge on the subject. The only thing left to do that I can think of is to check and make sure your network card is configured properly in Mandrake. If it is I'd try to connect your cable modem directly to the Mandrake machine and see if you can hit the internet that way. If you can then you need to check your cabling setup. If you can't get it to work after that someone else is going to have to take over for me because I know next to nothing on troubleshooting cabling problems.

I have very little clue about how cable modems work (and am probably about to prove it) but I thought that the device expected to be dealing with a fixed hardware network address (i.e. the code hardwired into the network interface) and got confused if this code changed. If this is so it might be necessary at least to power the modem off/on when changing the machine accessing it.

In fact I never heard of this modem/hub arrangement before. I'm not surprised there are unpredictable problems.

Well, I did a little more troubleshooting this weekend and it I still haven't gotten this figured out. I tried shutting off the cable modem and turning it back on and it still didn't work. I know it's not a hardware issue because I'm dual booting on the Linux machine and when I go back to Windows the two computers can see each other on the Network. I'm still going to try hooking the Linux box straight to the cable modem and see if it works that way. I think part of the problem is the Windows 98 machine because when I go to Control Panel>Add Remove programs>Windows Setup>Internet tools>and then try to click on Share Internet Connection it says I have to setup my harware first. Except all my hardware is setup and I didn't mess with any of that last time when it was working. Anyone else have any ideas? Please...

I'd suggest noting down the settings for your network connection under windows, then booting into Linux and seeing if there's anything different between the two.

Can you ping external IPs?

Which settings should I be comparing between Windows and Linux?

Nope, I can't ping external IP's. I can't ping the computer with the internet connection either. It says that the network is unavailable. But when I'm running the computer in Windows I can ping the Internet PC and even run a VNC program to control the internet PC.

when you boot up does your eth0 device boot up or fail?
can try /sbin/ifup eth0 (i think) and post what that says, if its *working* you might need to change your DHCP settings

It doesn't fail but it takes a really long time to check it. I'll try /sbin/ifup eth0 as soon as I get home.

Well, it said "Determining IP information for eth0..." then it said "done."

It didn't give me any errors or anything, it just said "done". Does that mean I need to mess with the DHCP settings? What should I be trying to do? I haven't messed with DHCP before. Again, thanks to everyone helping me out so far. We're gonna get this figured out!

Anyone else have any ideas?

I don't know how much I will be able to help you as I have never actually done what I'm about to tell you.

First let me get something straight. You have 2 computers, a hub, and a cable modem and you want to be able to look at the internet from both computers at the same time. If I have this correct then you have 3 options.

1. Buy a "Cable/DSL Router" from your favorite electronics giant. (i.e. Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, etc). Turn everything off (cable modem, computers, everything.) Connect both computers to the router (probably ports 1 and 2 or something like that) and then connect the cable modem to the WAN port (or something similar) on the router. First power up the cable modem and wait until it has acquired a signal, etc. Then power up the router and wait about another 30 seconds to 1 minute. Then power up your computers and that might just work depending on the network settings of your computers. (This is currently how I have my network setup using 2 computers. windows and linux)

2. Setup IP Masquerading (?sp). This is what I have never tried. For more information look up the HOWTO at www.tldp.org. This option is probably the hardest and may require you to recompile the kernel. (I haven't tried this YET. But I do plan on it in the next couple of days)

3. Setup Internet Connection Sharing on your Windows PC. I did this once with Windows 2000 Pro once and it worked. I don't know how it works now, but would probably work if you did your research.

I hope this was helpful.

Phekno