Ok guys, I originally posted this in the networking forums, but nobody there was able to help me. See if you guys can give it a go.
I combined two posts into one.

My situation:
I have an old laptop that I would like to install slackware 10 on ( i don't think the specs matter at the moment though I will say that it's a Netgear FA411 network card.) This laptop does not have a CD-ROM drive, there fore I have elected to do a NFS install. I got the bare.i boot disk and the two install disks and loaded those into the laptop's ramdisk. I then loaded the PCMCIA.dsk and network.dsk. I had a bit of trouble getting it to see my network card, but it finally did. I then tried to go through the setup process and selected a NFS install. The machine I was trying to install FROM is a desktop that I have Slack 10 running on successfully (though this box was not connected to the internet and I had not tried to set up the network settings until now.) I entered the info that the NFS install prompts asked of me and when it tried to install I got an error message "RPC: port mapper failure - RPC: unable to recieve"
Ok, here's where I think I'm making a mistake. As a n00b, I am fully entitled to make mistakes and do so on a regular basis. When asked what the Slackware source directory is, my response is /cd/Slackware because it's in the cd-rom of my desktop. Can I do that?? Do I need to copy it to the hdd??
Also, if I try to ping either machine (from the other), I get the response "Network is unreachable" Although when pinging the loopback address everything is fine.
Hmm, let's see...anything else I need to tell you <reading over post>
*Yes, I did use a crossover cable as I am connecting computer to computer.
*Yes I am a n00b.

And here's my second post.

Ok, slight update. I can now ping from my laptop. If I ping the laptop's IP address (from the laptop), all is well. If I ping the desktop's IP address (again, from the laptop), the packets are sent, but not recieved. i.e. "4 packets transmitted, 0 packets recieved, 100% packet loss". I am still getting the "network is unreachable" error message from the Desktop. Which leads me to beleive that the laptop is probably fine, the problem is most likely the network settings on the desktop. How do I tell if the desktop sees my nic?



Any help would be greatly appreciated
melee

1) Use "ifconfig" to see if you have networking setup right.
2) for the directory, you'll need to point it to wherever you have the cd mounted, i.e. /mnt/cdrom.
3) Make sure rpcportmapper is running on the desktop.
4) Easier to do if you have no firewalls in place (iptables)
5) You need to add the NFS shares to /etc/exports. I'm sure there is another way, but that works. I reboot after adding it.

That way would be /etc/rc.d/rc.nfsd restart

But to respond to the problem:

There is no point in trying to try a NFS install when your network does not work the way it should. Are you sure your crosscable is good ? Can you use a switch or hub and try it with two straight cables connected to the hub/switch ?
Are both pc's in the same network ? What does ifconfig tell you ? Is there a firewall running on one of the machines ? Are both nics running on same speed/duplex ? (mii-tool)

Now, see, this is what I like. I put this question up on the Networking forum and I get Zero response for three days. I put it up on the Slackware forum and BOOM!! two responses within 2 hours. You guys are the shiznit!

rotvogel - Yes, the crossover cable is good. Both the laptop and the PC are on the same network...in fact, they ARE the network. It's only those two computers. Eventually, I will connect them to the rest of my network, but for simplicity's sake, I have segmeted these two computers apart from the others. I don't have any spare hubs or switches around, and I suppose I could go get one, but where would the fun be in that? This way is more of a learning experience for me. (Just be glad I didn't try a PLIP installation like I had planned) There is no firewall running on either machine that I know of. Does Slack 10 run a firewall upon booting by default? If not, then there should not be any firewalls running. Are both nics running on the same speed/duplex...sure...maybe... I don't know. They are both rated for 100Mbit/sec beyond that, I don't know how to check that within Slack. (please enlighten me if you will)

Unfortunately, I won't be able to address the other suggestions until I get home from work, but I'll report back as soon as I do.
Thanks!
melee

ok, so here's what ifconfig tells me
eth1 Linkencap. Ethernet
HWaddr 00:09:5B:1F:5F:0C
UP Broadcast Multicast MTU 1500 Metric:1
RX Packets: 63 errors: 0 Dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame: 0
TX Packets: 0 errors: 0 Dropped: 0 overruns: 0 Carrier: 0
Collisions: 0 Txqueuelen: 1000
Rx bytes: 3780 (3.6Kb)
Tx bytes: 0 (0.0b)
Interrupt: 10 Base Address 0xc0000

lo Linkencap local loopback
inet addr 127.0.0.1 Mask 255.0.0.0
Up loopable running MTU 16436
Rx Packets: 8 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame: 0
Tx packets: 0 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame: 0
collisions: 0 TX: 0
Rx bytes 672 (672.0b) Tx bytes 672 (672.0b)

so there you have it. Unfortunately, I don't know what this is telling me really. What does it tell you guys (pertinent to my situation?)
melee

Hi melee, I just wanted you to know that you need to run the rc.portmap service in order to run a NFS server or client (the file is /etc/rc.d/rc.portmap) and that may be the reason that it told about the RPC error (this file handles that).
Also if you need more information about NFS (not too complete but you should be able to learn how to share and mount) take a look at: http://slackware.com/book/index.php?source=x1304.html

Portmap will be executed automaticly by the rc.nfsd script. So if you enable NFSD Portmapping will be running as well.

I do not see any ipaddress on your interface. Maybe you should rerun the netconfig script and assing an ip and netmask to your interface. If your "server" has for example has the address 192.168.0.1 and netmask 255.255.255.0 you could assign 192.168.0.2/255.255.255.0 to your other machine.

The good news is the kernel is recognizing a nic adapter. The bad news is its not configured and for some reason (laptop has builtin nic=eth0 ?) it is seen as eth1. At some point suspect you have to login on another console ALT F2 and manually issue:

/sbin/ifconfig eth1 IPADDR broadcast BROADCAST netmask NETMASK

changing CAPITALIZE variables to correct IP #s
then try pinging (localhost,laptop IP#,server IP#) from this console before changing back to proceed with setup.

Hard to answer; if the cd drive is fast enough and you have properly exported the /mnt/cdrom on the server it should work ok but probably slower than if you have space and go ahead and copy (using same directory structure /a /ap ....) to the server hard disk.

ppd

Ok, sorry for taking so long to reply, my life got a bit hectic for a bit. Here's where I am at this point: My laptop and pc now see each other. I can ping one from the other and each can still ping itself. When I try to run setup on the laptop, all goes well until the nfs portion (obviously) and I get this message: mount: RPC: Program not registered. And I have to start the process all over again. Any clue?
melee

After network.dsk before setup

/sbin/rpc.portmap
ps ax | grep portmap

Hopefully at this point you have started portmap and confirmed it is running.

now start setup.

Above assumes problem is at laptop level; might want to ps ax on server to confirm portmap and nfsd are running.

ppd

Ok, i did that. This is the response I got from the laptop:
675 ? SW 0:00 /sbin/rpc.portmap
2174 tty1 S 0:00 grep portmap

and from the pc:
1065 ? Ss 0:00 /sbin/rpc.portmap
3181 pts/2 S+ 0:00 grep portmap

When I enter ps ax | grep nfsd at the pc...no response. I assume that means that nfsd is not running...how do I run it?
melee

anyone? anyone?
melee

nfsd needs to be running on the server not on the client . Starting nfsd would be something like :

rotvogel, I did that. Now, how do I tell if it is running? I just did ps ax | grep nfsd and got no response
melee

Ok, so i did a bit of googling around and found out about the "top" command. As near as I can tell, this command lists all running processes on the box (Task manager style). When I entered the "top" command, rpc.portmap was on the list, but nfsd was not. Something tells me the didn't work. Hmmm... any suggestions out there?
melee