Robert Epprecht wrote:
I want to link an old laptop to my pc. I have done this before using Debian potato on my pc and another (older) Linux installation on the laptop, so I know it is not a hardware problem. Now I have woody on both machines. The pc side works OK and I can use the network (if I boot my *old* Linux system on the laptop). But when I boot woody on the laptop I'm out of luck: ping pc ping: sendto: Network is unreachable (I can't ping from the pc to the laptop either). My knowledge/experience with networks is very limited, so I search a bit everywhere I can think of: As the link goes over a PCMCIA card I suspected a missing module or something, but I see with dmesg: eth0: NE2000 (DL10019 rev 05): io 0x300, irq 3, ... ifconfig shows lo only ifconfig eth0 up eth0: found link beat eth0: autonegotiation complete: 100baseT-FD selected But ping does still not work. route shows only title lines, no entries. I think I must have missed a very basic installation/configuration step, but which one? Thanks a lot for your help, Robert
Robert,It appears that you have the proper module loaded and the hardware is recognized but not "configured" with a IP address, netmask, gateway entry, etc. If it was configured properly, you should see the eth0 interface listed in ifconfig with all the proper data.
The file that controls this behavior in Woody is the /etc/network/interfaces file. You can generate this "by hand" or there are several programs that will help create the proper file from just a simple set of Q & A.
If you want to "roll your own" you should consult the man page for this (man interfaces).
If you want to have an easy way to configure this file, just install the etherconf package and follow the directions.
I am attaching a sample of my /etc/network/interfaces file FYI and as a template for you to use. It was generated by etherconf. Beware of the word-wrap on this example.
### etherconf DEBCONF AREA. DO NOT EDIT THIS AREA OR INSERT TEXT BEFORE IT. <---- word wrapped
auto lo eth0
iface lo inet loopback
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.10.6
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.10.1
### END OF DEBCONF AREA. PLACE YOUR EDITS BELOW; THEY WILL BE
PRESERVED. <--- word wrapped.
Cheers, -Don Spoon-