PPP wont work!!!!! please help!

[Dylan <supa.phly@mindspring.com>]

y0, heres my prob:
  i ran pppconfig, and wvdial config when i installed...   when i do 'pon'
it dials, connects, and i stay connected, but i try to test the connection
by pinging several hosts, but it always says: 'yahoo.com: unknown host'.
when i try 'wvdial' it connects, but when it trys to start pppd, i get
segmentaion fault...   anyone know what the problem is?
  btw, i'm using deb 2.0.

ps: i also would like to know how to decompress a file in *.deb and *.rpm
format, being a slackware user, i have always tried to stay away from these
two...