I just finished installing Mandrake 10, but find I can't access the internet. I've tried connection settings via the Mandrake Control Center, examining "dmesg" output and the like, but still can't make sense of this. It of course doesn't help that I'm new to Linux.

It appears to be detecting my network card (Linksys brand) and even the onboard Gigabyte network card, but nothing seems to get either working. When I try pinging via the prompt, it says host not found. The only thing I can ping currently is 127.0.0.1.

EDIT: Also, when examining the "dmesg" log, the eth0 card enters some promiscuous mode at the end and the leaves this mode the next line. The very last line then says "no IPv6 routers present".

I've been using a Linksys router with Windows XP and currently have it still hooked up.

Any help would be extremely appreciated. I'm pretty lost and no amount of searching has yielded any useful results. While I'd much rather use a GUI, do I have to mess with IP tables and whatnot via the prompt?

- Matt.

Are you sharing this connection thru your computer? If not, disable one of the nics, and check your settings on the remaining one. Are you using dchp or are you using static IP. Bottom line...you need to give a little more info.

I'm sharing through a router which is after our cable modem. My wife's computer works just fine and is on the second port. I did have both a card and onboard ethernet, so I did disable the onboard one just in case. Our router is DCHP, so yes, I am trying to use it. There is no static IP.

I'd be more than happy to provide any additional information. Thanks for your reply.

do either of these return any replies:

ping -c 4 linuxquestions.org
ping -c 4 64.179.4.149

ping -c 4 linuxquestions.org
ping: unknown host linuxquestions.org

ping -c 4 64.179.4.149
connect: Network is unreachable

It is basically not even getting through, although I would think it should be. It is set for DCHP from the router. The router itself is fine and we already have another Windows XP computer that works just fine off port #2. And I was just using port #1 yesterday with Windows XP. This appears to be a Linux configuration problem.

Can you ping the router or the XP computer?

Have you tried using Mandrake Control Center to configure the network card and setup networking?

I can ping neither. :-( Router is 192.168.1.1 and other computer is 192.168.1.102. My Linux machine should be picking up 192.168.1.101 I would think.

Yes, I've been using the Mandrake Control Center all night with no positive results. The farthest I've gotten is being able to ping the router, but that was with some screwy settings that still weren't able to access the internet. I've since reverted back to DCHP and the way it should be.

EDIT: One thing I have NOT messed with is "Internet Connection Sharing". But that is assuming I'd want to use my own network card to share a connection, which I don't. My router takes care of that. I just need a single line to the router to work.

try typing # route delete default as root on cammand line , I get this problem on reboots periodically...

Does the output of /sbin/ifconfig show a valid IP address?
Are you connecting the router to the correct interface?

It is typical for the PCI card to be recognized first and be assigned eth0. Check the /etc/modules.conf file to confirm.

Also check the output of /sbin/lsmod to be sure that the module(s) are loading.

When typing "route delete default" I get:

SIOCDELRT: No such process

When typing "# route delete default" nothing happens except it goes to the next Linux command prompt line.

Could it be possible that internet capability is somehow not installed? I chose not to install the "Internet" package by default because I wanted to install my own browser, email client, etc. Is there a way to install this anyway after Mandrake 10 has been installed?

When root, "ifconfig" does not show a valid IP address for eth0. :-(

Yes, the router is connected properly and I've plugged the network cable into my network PCI card I've always used in the past.

"modules.conf" does show eth0 as being detected first. Also please note that I've disabled my onboard networking just in case. I'd rather use the PCI card anyway.

I did an "lsmod" and do not see "eth0" listed. But I do see IPv6 and a few other things. I'm not to familiar with separate Linux modules though.

Thanks again for all your help. Grrr...this is frustrating. Hope Linux isn't always this difficult.

The ouput of lsmod should show the module for the linksys card.
Is it loading?

To manually configure eth0
ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

If that works you should be able to ping the router.

The only "lsmod" module I can find that may relate is something called "tulip". Otherwise there is nothing related to a Linksys network card as far as I can tell.

I did try the ifconfig manual configuration you listed and was able to ping the router like you said. But I was only able to ping 192.168.1.2 and not 192.168.1.1. Out of curiosity, why 192.168.1.2 and not 192.168.1.1?

Thanks for your help so far. I really appreciate it.

I just "lsmod" one more time to be sure, but there was absolutely nothing that would directly relate to my network Linksys card. A card does show up as eth0 when I try doing a new connection from the Mandrake Control Center.

This is getting so irritating. No wonder more people don't switch to Linux. :-/

Well, I just went ahead and installed every internet or network package I could see that was Mandrake recommended. But unfortunately that didn't help. :-(