Relative newbie needs help getting network working

[Rick Stevens]

Frank W. Zammetti (MLists) wrote:
> 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.

It depends on what software your DHCP server is running.  Many older
Windows-based DHCP servers didn't properly implement DHCP and a lot of
DHCP clients wouldn't work.

> 
> 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.

There is no Red Hat Linux 9.2.  Before everything went commercial, the
last Red Hat Linux was 9 (no dot, no 2).  Red Hat's commercial products
are Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 in four flavors: Advanced Server 3 (AS3),
Enhanced Server 3 (ES3), Workstation 3 (WS3) and Desktop 3.

The latest free Red Hatish Linux is Fedora Core 3.  Red Hat doesn't
own Fedora Core, but they are big players in it and use it as the test
ground for future Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases (RHEL4 will probably
be based on Fedora Core 2).
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-  BASIC is the Computer Science version of `Scientific Creationism' -
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