trying null modem Pt2Pt.. frustrated net-newbie

[<kaynjay@igalaxy.net>]

Hello,

I am hoping someone can point out to this lost soul where he's screwed up.

I've installed Deb. 2.2 onto a new system (Athlon) using the CD minimal
install disk which gets me in with enough stuff to connect to the rest of
the world...

It's next to the old 486 box running 2.2.14 and a ppp line out.  I've
connected the two through COM 1 ports with a null modem cable (is this the
mistake?), and have serial/SLIP/CSLIP in the kernels.  The hosts file in the
486 (kaynjay) reads

127.0.0.1       localhost       loopback
192.168.1.1     kaynjay.kenward.vaughan kaynjay
192.168.1.2    H_Potter.kenward.vaughan H_Potter

at the top, with some Ip6 stuff underneath. Resolv.conf reads

domain kenward.vaughan

at the top with DNS info underneath for the modem.

The Athlon box (H_Potter ... I've got kids :) resolv.conf file has 
search kenward.vaughan  at the top and the same DNS stuff underneath (I'm
Hoping to IP masq. out of the 486 eventually). Its hosts file has 

127.0.0.1       localhost       loopback
192.168.1.2    H_Potter.kenward.vaughan H_Potter

Following the NETWORKING HowTo, I ran 

slattach -s 115200 /dev/ttyS0 &
ifconfig sl0 192.168.1.1 pointopoint 192.168.1.2

on kaynjay, and the equivalent on H_Potter.

Right now on kaynjay (with the modem up) ifconfig gives:

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:3924  Metric:1
          RX packets:38 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:38 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

ppp0      Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
          inet addr:63.196.173.47  P-t-P:63.196.172.5  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1514  Metric:1
          RX packets:67 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:59 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:10

sl0       Link encap:VJ Serial Line IP
          inet addr:192.168.1.1  P-t-P:192.168.1.2  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:296  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
             compressed:0
          TX packets:5 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 compressed:0 txqueuelen:10

where I guess the TX packets:5 were the attempts to ping H_Potter.

I can't ping either way, much less anything else.

I'm quite uncertain about this whole procedure, as I get the feeling that
I'm doing something blazingly wrong, but it is not clear to this non-geek
hobbyist from the document what I Should be seeing.

My goal at this point is to be able to transfer or directly use the potato
debs on kaynjay.  I recognize the obvious alternative (moving the HD over),
but I'd never learn to network these things that way.

If the cable is wrong, I can always use the printer cable and recompile for
PLIP, yes??

Sorry for the long post.  I'm weary now (way late here).  I'd be grateful
for any help, though.

Kenward