Hey, I'm a Slackware newbie (and Linux in general) and thought it would seem better placed here.

I'm having trouble connecting to the Internet. How do I connect to it? I've tried using netconfig but I'm never able to get it to work. Should I use DHCP or static? I'm not new to computers but I've never even heard of DHCP before. Any help is greatly appreciated. (Or walkthrough :P)

Also, please don't advise switching to another distro, I heard Slackware is great for learning Linux and I'd much rather dive head-first rather than using Ubuntu or Debian for 2 years. xD

You need to provide some details if you want help. Are you connected via ethernet or wireless? What card are you using? As far as static IP or dhcp, that depends on how your router is configured but typically they're set for dhcp by default.

We need to know what card and whether or not the driver is loaded.

please list the outputs of

and

Hi,
Welcome to Slackware!

You should provide more detail, your kernel, hardware configuration and anything that you attempted to date.

Just few links;


Slackware® Essentials
Slackware® Basics
Linux Documentation Project
Rute Tutorial & Exposition
Linux Command Guide
Linux Newbie Admin Guide
LinuxSelfHelp
Getting Started with Linux

These links and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links' .
More than just Slackware® links!

Thanks to you both.
First, I'm using Slackware 12.1 on an Hp compaq nc4010. I'm not sure on how to check my kernel. It has a 20 gig HDD, 512 MB of RAM, 1.6 GHz Pentium Mobile processor.

As for router, I'm not sure. I'm on a college campus and there's no documentation of that on our tech resource website.

lsmod has these settings:
radeon:124192(used 0)
drm:73620(used 1)
snd_seq_dummy:6660(used 0)
snd_seq_oss:32896(used 0)
snd_seq_midi_event:10112(used 1 by snd_seq_oss)
snd_seq:50256(used 5 by dummy,oss,midi_event)
snd_pcm_oss:40352(used 0)
snd_mixer_ss:17920(used 1 pcm_oss)
ipv6:234724(used 12)
lp:13348(used 0)
fuse:45588(used 1)
pcmia:35884(used 0)
fan:7428(used 0)
container:7424(used 0)
video:19472(used 0)
snd_ali5451:22412(used 0)
irtty_sir:8960(used 0)
output:6656 (used 1 by video)
snd_ac79_codec:98724(used 1 by ali5451)
ac97_bus:5760(used 1 by ac97_codec)
snd_pcm:72068( used 3 by pcm_oss,ali5451,ac97_codec)
sir_dev:14596(used 1 by irtty_sir)
thermal:16540(used 0)
irda:114360(used 1 by sir_dev)
i2c_ali5x3:10372(used 0)
snd_timer:22532(used 2 by snd_seq,snd_pcm)
ac:8068(used 0)
rtc_cmos:11040(used 0)
battery:14340(used 0(
snd:47716(used 9 by all with snd_)
processor:32680(used 1 by thermal)
psmouse:40336(used 0)
soundcore:9824(used 1 by snd)
tg3:113028(used 0)
button:10000(used 0)
rtc_core:18696(used 1 by rtc_cmos)
shpchp:32788(used 0)
yenta_socket:26636(used 2)
i2c_ali1535:9860(used 0)
rsrc_nonstatic:14592(used 1 by yenta_socket)
snd_page_alloc:11528(used 1 by snd_pcm)
rtc_lib:6528(used 1 by rtc_core)
pcmia_core:35988(used 3 by pcmia,yenta_socket, and rsrc_nonstatic)
ati_agp:10764(used 1)
crc_ccitt:5760(used 1 by irda)
sergio_raw:9092(used 0)
agpgart:30664(used 2 by drm, and ati_agp)
evdev:12672(used 5)
alim1535_wdt:8468(used 0)
parport_pc:27556(used 1)
parport:34632(used 2 by lp, parport_pc)

Hi,

The kernel can be found out from the cli by 'uname -r' or 'uname -a' to get the system information. You can 'man uname' to get more information for the command.

I would suggest to make your post clean and easier to read is to place long data or lists within the vbcode tags either 'quote' or 'code'. These tags are at the top of your reply or edit window.

As for the router, it's not that important right now. You will need the WEP/WPA key if security is used. You will need to either use 'dhcp' or a static IP for your system. But we should first get the thing up an running properly.

To see what network devices you have then issue from the cli 'ifconfig -a'. Again do a 'man ifconfig'. If you ran 'netconfig' then post your '/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf' file. That will show what you have provided for information. We don't need your keys so you can just x out those.

Be sure to look at the links that I provided earlier, especially 'Slackware essentials'. It's a little dated but useful.

Ok, my kernel is 2.6.24.5-smp
and my /etc/rc.d/rc/inet1.conf is null for IPADDR[0], NETMASK, USE_DHCP (it's equal to yes) and DHCP HOSTNAME.and default GATEWAY IP is null.

Also, how do I exit vi? Like I said, I'm very new to slackware.

to exit vi use You're failing to provide all of the information being requested by those trying to help you. We have reasons for asking for the info.

Please provide the output of

and

as requested.

I'm sorry. I just don't know what data you're specifically looking for. I don't even know how to reach half of it in the cli. It won't let me go up so I can get the rest.

EDIT: when I use lspci I get
00:09.0 Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212/AR5213 Multiprotocol MAC/baseband processor
and
00:13.0 Ethernet controller NetXtreme BCM5705M Gigabit Ethernet (rev 03)
Not even sure if it helps in this instance.

OK, I understand. When we ask for the output of a command we simply want you to enter that command and post the output you get from it.

After a bit of googling I see the Linux driver module for that card is tg3, which according to your lsmod, is loaded. That's good news because that means the kernel recognized your card. That's the biggest part of the battle. Now we just need to get your connection going.

What is the output of


As far as being able to read all of the output of a command with a lot of output, use the pipe

For example for lspci enter it as

And the output will halt when the screen fills, allowing you to read all of the data to that point.

The "man" command is great for learning about the details and usage of commands.

Thanks, from what my ifconfig -a has, it says that for eth0, my inet addr is :xxx.xx.xxx.xxx regular masking at 255.255.255.0, a Bcast at xxx.xx.xxx.xxx (a sub connection of the main IP I believe)

I have an HWaddr which then has my MAC address I believe.

RX packets 459 errors, 0 drops, overruns, and frames.
TX packets 10 errors, 0 drops, overruns, frames.
collision:0
txquelen:1000
RX bytes: 33830(33.0KiB)
TX bytes: 1842(1.7KiB)
Interrupt: 10

lo
inet addr is set local and mask is 255.0.0.0
Up Loopback running MTU:16436 Metric :1


I'm still not sure exactly which part of it is needed so I intentionally left out the MAC address from Bcast and the inet6 addr for security reasons. Also, sorry if it's still not what you're looking for, I'm trying to figure out which part you're looking for exactly. But please be patient with me, I'm just trying to get this working cause it's a personal project and I'm dying to get this working.

Hi,

Masking out a local IP is not really necessary. You did get a IP for that MAC address? What about the kernel route table, form the cli do 'route -n'. You can copy and paste the output or even redirect it like; 'route -n >myroute'. This could be on removable media i.e. flash,floppy, etc. Don't 'x' out any data as this one should point to your gateway and the devies.

When I said to 'x' out key data I was speaking of your WEP/WPA keys. We don't need those.

BTW, Place your data within the vbcode tags, quote or code. These are at the top of the reply window. Code is the # and quote is the bubble to the left of it. Makes things cleaner therefore easier to read, especially long lists.

OK, if ifconfig says you are getting an IP address you should be connected. What happens when you start your web browser?

Also, enter the code

and post the output.

ok, here's my output from route -n
And for the ping of www.linuxquestions.org I got a "bad number of packets to transfer."

Hi,

From the cli;


Your DNS for eku.edu is;

Your '/etc/resolv.conf' should have at least one of the;

Ok, so if I understand this correctly that if it doesn't have those I can go in any text editor and change it to that and it should work properly?