Relative newbie needs help getting network working

[Frank W. Zammetti (MLists)]

I managed to solve the problem... For whatever reason, it didn't like
DHCP.  I don't understand why, but when I set it up for a static address,
all of a sudden everything works.

If anyone has any thoughts on why I'd love to hear them, but the problem
is at least solved.

Frank

On Fri, January 7, 2005 12:15 pm, Frank W. Zammetti (MLists) said:
> Hello all.  I am a fairly new Linux user.. I have some experience, but
> assume I know almost nothing...  I have set up and used a couple of
> different distros over the past 2 years or so, but I'm pretty much still a
> newbie.
>
> Anyway... I have a Dell Optiplex GX1 that I'm trying to set up.  I
> originally had Mandrake on it, I forget which version (if not the latest
> than just 1 or 2 versions back).  Problem was, networking was not working.
>  When it booted the eth0 initialization would fail and it said something
> about a possible cable problem.
>
> Well, the machine was set up as a dual-boot with Windows 2000, so I booted
> to Windows and networking was working just fine, so I know the cable is
> fine.
>
> I decided that maybe installing the latest RedHat would take care of it.
> So, I installed 9.2, installing everything (as I always do because I
> frankly don't know what dependencies I might screw up if I'm selective!).
> The install went smoothly, it identified the network adapter correctly (an
> onboard 3Com, 3C905 I believe), no errors, seemed to be OK.  But, when I
> booted, the same problem as with Mandrake happened.
>
> I got into a GUI (I assume it's KDE, I'm not really sure, it's all
> RedHat-branded) and selected the Networking option from the System
> Settings menu.  I selected the device (which it says is inactive,
> logically) and clicked Edit.  I noticed on the Hardware Device tab the
> Bind to MAC Address option.  Now, I'm not sure if this is important or
> not, but I noticed there was a Probe button, so I clicked it.  It came up
> with a MAC address, so my conclusion is that the OS is indeed talking to
> the network adapter properly.
>
> So, at this point I'm at the end of my knowledge.  Any ideas on what could
> look like a cable failure to the OS but actually NOT be?  The only
> remotely unusual thing I can think of is that we use Cat6 cabling here.
> Any chance that's an issue in some way I can't think of?
>
> Also, it is set up for DHCP.  DHCP is active on the network, as evidenced
> by the fact that I can plug my laptop into the network using the SAME
> cable as this PC and I pull a DHCP lease and have access to the network.
>
> I'm at a loss and would appreciate any help you can give.  Thank you!
>
> Frank
>