Re: problems with X
> Yes, the problem of the network connection not working baffles me.
>
> I used to access the net(internet) to get packages(using debians "dselect"
> program) and then I had the problems with X, I used to reboot the system
> without doing it the normal way(shutdown or init 0 commands) by turning
> off the power switch. And now there is this problem of not connecting to
> the net.
>
> Let me ask something, I am connecting to the internet via some
> servers(DNS, webserver etc.,?? on this intranet, which has predominantly
> UNIX machines that run servers. And I also notice that there is a
> inetd, http server(httpd), and a (domain??) name server(named) that Debian starts up
> on this machine. I believe I dont really need these. any ideas on how to
> reomve these??
Remember the xdm or similar symlink you've just blasted? inetd, named and
httpd are likely listed there too.
It's common for web authors to maintain a local web daemon so they can test
things, and named can run in "caching" mode to make your surfing a little
more efficiently. But you don't need them, certainly. inetd usually manages
samba or ftp or telnet, none of which are necessary either... and samba can
run on its own anyway, as can several of the more interesting ftp daemons.
I really don't recommend keeping telnet active on a laptop.
> and connect to the network ??
>
> I am using a 10bT PCMCIA ethernet card. and the card seems to be working
> fine.
How can you tell this works fine, if you're not sure of your connections
to other machines on your network?
A lot of corporate networks, and many ISPs, use DHCP to automatically hand
out an IP address to a new system attaching to their net. If your card
got such an assignment, then you can run
ifconfig eth0
and it will list, among other numbers, an IP address labelled "inet addr:"
which happens to be your address on the net.
The next thing is that you need a route - the bits need to be told to go
out the ethernet card when they're not local. You can ask the routes
by running
route -n
That -n means, don't try and lookup the names for me, thanks. Which is
important if you really aren't seeing other machines - the names are not
at all likely to resolve properly.
I've found that wrong netmasks can lead to wrong routes and thus bits
not getting to the right places. In your case you claim the net was working,
but hasn't worked properly since you had to power-cycle the system. It's
possible that an important file got scrambled.
> Thanks for the display manager bit, and the info on how to start-up X
> using the startx script. I did eactly that(removed the symlink that
> started up the xdm process) and then edited a .xinitrc file to include
> some xterm (clients??)
>
> and it works, fine. but there is no way to get a connection to the net!!
Do you have some sort of local sysadmin who can help you with this? Even
if he's usually used to Windows, he could be some help, and we can help
translate for you if he gives you instructions.
* Heather Stern * star@ many places...
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