Alright, I've read lots of posts in on this topic, but nothing that tells me what to do next.

I have a dual-booted Win2000/Mandrake9.1 machine connected to a Linksys Wireless-B Router (it's a cable connection, someone else uses the wireless connection) via a VC86C100A Via-Rhine Ethernet Card. The router is in turn is connected to a SpeedStream 5260 Ethernet ADSL modem.

I tried running DrakConnect, but it was useless (I'm told that's normal). If I try setting up a lan with it I am immediately ejected from the program. Running the Ethernet config tool through the hardware browser, it tell me "Congratulations...you have set up your connection" (through DrakConnect it asks me if I have an ethernet card other than the one I have, and it when I tell it no it sends me back to the 'what kind of connection?' screen).

The router uses DCHP. I tried connecting to 192.168.1.1 but it didn't work (it did work under Windows). The adsl uses PPPoe.

I ran adsl-setup and it seemed to work (though I'm told I shouldn't need to run it).

ifconfig -a gives me:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:80:C8:4B:1D:06
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

eth0:9 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:80:C8:4B:1D:06
inet addr:169.254.154.161 Bcast:169.254.255.255 Mask:255.255.0.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:49 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:49 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0
RX bytes:3340 (3.2 Kb) TX bytes:3340 (3.2 Kb)

ppp0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:64.228.117.108 P-t-P:64.228.117.241 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:576 Metric:1
RX packets:1795 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1554 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0
RX bytes:716333 (699.5 Kb) TX bytes:181627 (177.3 Kb)

and route -n gives me:

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
64.228.117.241 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 ppp0
169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
0.0.0.0 64.228.117.241 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 ppp0

I'm using an external dial-up modem at the same time (in order to reach this board) in case that makes a difference.

So, can anyone help me? Please? Because I *hate* using Win2000...

Is your router a dhcp server ? if it is, try putting that in the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/eth0 (create it if it doesn't exist)

NEEDHOSTNAME=yes
ONBOOT=yes
DEVICE=eth0
GATEWAY=192.168.0.1 (needs to be the address of your router)
MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=no
IPADDR=""
BROADCAST=""
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NETWORK=""
MTU=1458
NETMASK=""

That's what drakconf has set for mine in mdk 9.2

then do 'killall pppd'
and then type ifup eth0 and let us have the output of ifconfig -a.

ppp0 should be gone and eth0 should have a configuration.

Modified the file (it was called ifup-eth0 on my system for some reason) but I still can't connect. I tried using drakconnect from Gnome instead of KDE and found that it isn't buggy, but I still can't connect to my router. ifconfig -a returned this:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:80:C8:4B:1D:06
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1458 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:2 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

eth0:9 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:80:C8:4B:1D:06
inet addr:169.254.154.161 Bcast:169.254.255.255 Mask:255.255.0.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1458 Metric:1

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:121 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:121 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0
RX bytes:8099 (7.9 Kb) TX bytes:8099 (7.9 Kb)

I'm now using my dial-up again. Any help would be appreciated.

Try setting the NIC with a static IP address instead of DHCP.

I set the IP to 192.168.1.100 using netconf (seeing as Drakconnect is now failing in both KDE and Gnome) but still no luck. Maybe I'm setting it up wrong?

Does your router show you in anyway that it sees you network card ? ( a led or something).

Also, have you used your network card before ? It could be that a firewall setting blocks anything coming from eth0.....

The network card works perfectly with my Windows 2000 boot, but it fails with Mandrake and Knoppix - as does every other network card I've tried (3 in total). Frankly, it's ridiculous. My motherboard is K7S6A. None of the cards have ever worked under Linux.

On boot up, the Linksys does seem to react to the computer - there's a light that blinks a bit - and when the start-up sequence reaches 'starting network interfaces' it gets the correct IP number from somewhere and puts it on screen.

How can I change the firewall settings and KNOW they are changed. Also, how can I know for certain my network cards is recognized at all - some programs seem to recognize it, but others don't (like drakconnect).

Can you do an lspci (as root) (shows what is on your pci bus) and an lsmod (modules loaded) ?

Try using ifconfig i.e. log in as root
ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.20 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

Use an address 192.168.1.x where x<100. The router defaults automatically assign DHCP starting at 100.

Now see if you can ping the router.

00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 745 Host (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS 530 Virtual PCI-to-PCI bridge (AGP)
00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 85C503/5513
00:02.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS7001 USB Controller (rev 07)
00:02.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS7001 USB Controller (rev 07)
00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (rev d0)
00:0b.0 Serial controller: US Robotics/3Com 56K FaxModem Model 5610 (rev 01)
00:0c.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy (rev 03)
00:0c.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy MIDI/Game port (rev 03)
00:0c.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Creative Labs SB Audigy FireWire Port
00:0e.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT86C100A [Rhine] (rev 06)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 MX 440] (rev a3)

Module Size Used by Not tainted
ppp_deflate 4408 0 (autoclean)
zlib_inflate 21156 0 (autoclean) [ppp_deflate]
zlib_deflate 21144 0 (autoclean) [ppp_deflate]
bsd_comp 5336 0 (autoclean)
ide-cd 33856 1 (autoclean)
sr_mod 16920 0 (autoclean) (unused)
cdrom 31648 0 (autoclean) [ide-cd sr_mod]
scsi_mod 103284 1 (autoclean) [sr_mod]
appletalk 25700 1 (autoclean)
ipx 21252 1 (autoclean)
parport_pc 25096 1 (autoclean)
lp 8096 0 (autoclean)
parport 34176 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]
audigy 70952 0
ac97_codec 12488 0 [audigy]
sound 70644 0 [audigy]
soundcore 6276 0 [audigy sound]
ppp_async 9216 1
ppp_generic 24060 3 [ppp_deflate bsd_comp ppp_async]
slhc 6564 1 [ppp_generic]
af_packet 14952 2 (autoclean)
floppy 55132 0
via-rhine 15056 1 (autoclean)
mii 3832 0 (autoclean) [via-rhine]
ohci1394 19048 0 (unused)
ieee1394 45900 0 [ohci1394]
supermount 15296 2 (autoclean)
nls_iso8859-1 3516 2 (autoclean)
nls_cp850 4316 2 (autoclean)
vfat 11820 2 (autoclean)
fat 37944 0 (autoclean) [vfat]
usb-ohci 20584 0 (unused)
usbcore 72992 1 [usb-ohci]
rtc 8060 0 (autoclean)
ext3 59916 2
jbd 38972 2 [ext3]

also route -n struck me as being strange:
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
64.228.117.241 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 ppp0
169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
0.0.0.0 64.228.117.241 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 ppp0

The second address is the DSL...shouldn't there be a gateway listed? There is under netconf.

Tried it, got a whole lot of this:
PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.1.20 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable

Afterward I tried netconf again and found the IP was still listed as 192.168.1.100

Me too.
The results of route -n list the gateway as 64.228.117.241

The way I understand how it should be and someone correct me if I'm wrong. I have DSL and use a MDK router / firewall. I have never tried to configure a hardware router with linux. BTW I used drakeconnect and it worked first time.

Your router WAN connection should be configured for pppoe and DHCP. For the lan side, all of the IP addresses should be 192.168.1.x. You do not need to configure MDK for DSL since that is being handled by the router. However, You will need to add the router as a gateway.

Now why hasn't route changed to reflect a different IP address. Which is probably why you can't ping the router.

Must think some more

The 64.228.117.241 address is for my dial-up connection, which I'm using right now so I can read set-up advice for my DSl and then immediately try it out. The 169.254 address is for the DSL.

I have the same problem. Just set up your DNS server xxx.xx.xx.xx to be the same as the win2k (command line /ipconfig

Sorry, didn't help.

Can anyone give me a summary of what all the files are, what they need to say, and any other requirements?