Hello forum,

I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 580 PC. Before this purchase I had an eMachine (Gateway) connected to my Verizon Westell VersaLink modem along with an iMac and a Gateway PC that is now a Debian linux terminal (OS: Lenny).

I was able to log into the linux terminal from the iMac using Darwin terminal. Also, was able to log in from the eMachine PC after I installed Ubuntu 10.4 using its terminal. The emachine broke down, as I was experimenting with ChilliSoft (ASP for linux).

Since installing the Dell PC, I can't log into linux terminal, anymore. What I do is power down the Dell PC, disconnect its power cord and modem connecting cable. I log in via the iMac Darwin terminal. The performance is poor, lagging behind my keyboard entries.

I contacted Verizon. They said I needed a Premium account for assistance. I logged into Dell's account user chat service and they advised I contact Linux. So, here I am

I have a basic Intranet via three computers attached to one modem. I can get online just fine. Am now entering this via the Dell PC. I use PUTTY to (try to) log into the terminal from the Dell PC. Won't work.

Thanks for your help.

Dear User,

To nail down the issue, we need to go step by stpe:

1) First try to ping the server continously and see if any packet drops
2) If ping is fine then see the remote servers SSH logs for any error messages.
3) What is the usual loads on the remote server?
4) From the Source machine, are you able to connect other machines (if you have any) ?

Thanks & Regards,
Ramesh Shihora

Hi Ramesh,

I just pinged the Linux box and this is the result I often get, after several attempts:

(1.)
--- (IP Address) ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

Sometimes, gradually, it starts to get one packet through (80% loss). Next try: two packets get through (60% loss).

Then if flops out entirely with 100% packet loss, again. That's the pattern I've been experiencing since installing the new Dell Inspiron 580 computer.

(2.) can't access logs, yet.

(3.) Load: virtually none. There are some journals that I keep in the Linux box. I have MySql, PHP5, Apache 2.xx server, C++ compiler, etc.

(4.) I don't have a keyboard nor monitor attached to the Linux box server.

Hello Forum,

I am posting this reply as SOLVED being that it's essentially a non-problem. Just a quirk innate to my Verizon ISP setup. Something changed at their end, so, I can't even ping my linux box through my own LAN/INTRAnet. Only works, somewhat, when I power down and completely disconnect the Dell PC and log in through the iMac Darwin terminal.

I decided to go the route of using VirtualBox.org's software and created a virtual machine running Debian's latest release of their OS - "Squeeze" - and it's working fine on my Dell PC. FAIR WARNING! - if you decide to create one of these virtual machines on your windows OS using a disk image of Debian's OS, get ready for an install of about 1090+ files! It is huge. I meant to just get the terminal commandline basic setup (like the Linux box, originally, "Sarge OS") and when I burned the disk it brought in everything so that when you start up Debian you'll be seeing a GUI with desktop icons. I got Ubuntu 10.11, as well, on a prior vm setup before installing Debian's OS. Been having problems getting MySQL to work in Debian vm, so, when you start your own install process, you'll see a window where you could select the various type servers to be made available. Make sure to check off "[x] database server" because I left this unchecked and have no luck with MySQL startup (mysqld_safe). There is a 'Debian' and a 'usr' directory when you unpack MySQL-5.6.16*.deb.

Just get ready for another headache, if you go the route of VMs on your PC.

Eventually, I will rearrange things so that I can directly log into the Linux box terminal with it's own monitor and keyboard. You don't learn much about the BASH shell unless you start up a terminal. Great learning about grep, awk and sed. To me, this is what computer literacy is really all about; accessing the power under the GUI.

Thank you for all your help.