dhcp

[Robert Storey <y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net>]

I've had my LAN working well for a long time using static IP addresses
(specified in /etc/hosts).

Now I would like to play with dhcp, but I found the info in the Debian
reference manual  pretty minimal and I admit I don't really know what
I'm doing. But this is what I've done so far:

On both machines (desktop and laptop) I installed Debian packages "dhcp"
and "dhcp-client". I edited /etc/default/dhcp like this...

  INTERFACES="eth0"

...and then rebooted. The boot-up messages indicate the server is
starting. Remember that this is on both machines - perhaps that isn't
correct and I should only run the server on one? Anyway, one machine has
a hostname ibm.utopia.com and the other is sonic.utopic.com. From sonic,
typing "ping ibm" produces the message "ping: unknown host ibm" (ditto
for the fully qualified host name). Without the benefit of /etc/hosts
I'm not sure how the server is going to know the names of the clients.

Any help would be appreciated. Even pointing me to a FAQ or other online
source would be cool.

regards,
Robert