Hello! I get Internet access through Verizon, which delivers PPPoE over fiber to a router with DHCP enabled. The network is ethernet. As I was exploring LiveCDs, the vast majority could not find the Internet. Two that could were Puppy Linux and Slax. Suse couldn't, nor could Mandriva, nor a bunch of others. With one or two I could ping the router but nothing beyond. Most couldn't even find the router.

Anyway, Slackware as installed from the CD finds the Internet. But when I tried to upgrade the kernel to 2.6.16.1 this afternoon, it couldn't find the router. I am pretty sure I have many networking options checked in the configuration for 2.6.16.1. What could I have missed? Is my connection very unusual?

Since you're using pppoE, this can either be easy or difficult to set up. How is the router configured?

The one thing I can suggest is to allow the router to connect directly instead of using pppoe. That makes things much easier. It's just like connecting to the local lan using ethernet in that case.

Thank you for your reply. I'm not sure I can change how I get Internet. I think Verizon wants customers to get it through PPPoE.

Look at the loaded modules with your working live-cd's. Use lsmod to do it.