Strange TCP trouble (I think)

[Alex Solla <poopdeville@phreaker.net>]

Hi everybody,

I just installed Sarge on my trusty old iMac G3 500Mhz (slot-loading).  I had 
a bit of trouble installing packages at the end -- the installer didn't 
install a bunch of things I asked for because of broken dependencies.  No big 
deal, I just went ahead and installed things (using apt-get and 
ftp.us.debian.org) myself.

However, when I try to browse the web (or use anything else that relies on 
DNS),  DNS fails to resolve and I get timeout errors.  I can hit reload till 
the cows come home, and I'll get the same error.  Strangely enough, though, 
if I ping the site first, my browser resolves the dns immediately and the 
site loads almost instantly.  However, within a few minutes, I have to ping 
the site again or I get more timeout errors.

This makes me think that I may have forgotten to install a relevant package, 
since the trouble seems to becaused by the way some programs (konqueror, 
gaim, etc) try to access dns information as opposed to others (ping, 
traceroute) that do work.

But any suggestions would be appreciated.  I realize this might be a bit 
off-topic on this list, but the nature of the problem makes searching for a 
solution on the web difficult.

Thanks!
Alex