Connecting to router
 

I'm sorta a linux newbie.
I have a linksys 8-port wired router, and run on a PPPoE ADSL connection.
Although linksys claims I don't need drivers, for some reason I can't connect to the net (through mozilla on gnome). The router is lit up, showing the connection, but I still can't connect for some reason. I did, however, ran netconfig and set it up as a DHCP connection (just so that I could enter in a network/domain, didn't think it would matter w/ the router). So, basically, do I have to edit the netconfig manually (if so, where's the config file and what do I need to edit), or do I have to install rp-pppoe (if so, #1, how do I get it onto a disk from a windows machine, and #2 what directory should I move it to and how)?

Any help is appreciated.

The LinkSys units I have worked with are both a router and firewall. They have the PPPoE software builtin to authenticate. You should only need to config the Slack box for DHCP server, and the LinkSys would provide a valid response with DNS server assignments that were setup in the LinkSys. If your unit is not setup for the above then rp-pppoe might be required or look into reconfiguring your LinkSys router. Windows software will not work. You will need to locate and download rp-pppoe, try a google search.

Netconfig is the correct script to setup your networking on the first NIC. Did it locate a supported NIC? If it did then it should be eth0. You can use "lsmod" to list the loaded modules and verify that the module for your NIC is loaded. The script that you can run manually to config the NIC that netconfig edits is, /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.

I already know that setting it up for DHCP won't work, because it's NOT DHCP, and DHCP requests are handled differently than PPPoE. I know that the router has built-in PPPoE support, but I can't figure out why it's not working..

If the router is configured for DHCP then it will provide the DHCP server responses. Is this a new DSL service? Can you use the router and DSL from Windows? If you can use Windows then look at that config, if it is using PPPoE then the Slack box will need too as well. Or you need to config the router for PPPoE, firewall, DHCP, etc. if you have only one IP address, static or dynamic.

My DSL service uses a router, but I have a static subnet assignment. So I use the routers PPPoE to login and activate the service, then config my machine for a real IP address. It is just a simple network setup at that point. I let my Slack server act as a router, firewall, NAT, web server, ftp server, etc.

so when using a router, I set my own last octet for the conputer's ip, right? this is how I set it up:

comp's ip: 192.168.1.50 (last octet has to be from 2-99 for declared (static) ips)
subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 (which is correct)
gateway ip: 192.168.1.1 (also correct)
Nameserver not set

but I finished and went into mozilla, and it couldn't findthe homepage (mozilla.org)

I don't get what's wrong..

Edit: It couldn't connect to any other sites either.. and doesn't appear as an active connection in the router's config. I'm gonna try to restart the computer, but I don't think it will help

I suggest you set the name server to your ISP name server's IP address. It would have to be either set to the gateway machine's IP (if set to act as a DNS server, or route out DNS requests to another server), or to an external DNS server's IP (preferably your ISP's, seeing that it'll be faster).

Try the following:

http://www.mozilla.org/
http://207.200.81.215/

The first, as you well know, is the hostname of the Mozilla homepage. The latter, being the IP address of the same page. If the first link fails and the second works, it is most likely a DNS issue (as mentioned above). If both links fail, then you will need to look at your router's configuration.

Hope this helps...

Cheers,
Steve.