system not using hosts file

[Brian McKee <map@map-heb.com>]

I don't understand why 'host fred' doesn't return 127.0.0.1

==> host -v fred
Trying "fred.realsubdomain.realdomainname.com"
Trying "fred.realdomainname.com"
Trying "fred"
Host fred not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
Received 97 bytes from 192.168.0.2#53 in 0 ms


==> cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1               localhost.localdomain localhost fred
14.0.0.1                fake.fakelocaldomain fred2 fred3
192.168.0.11            realhostname.realsubdomain.realdomainname.com  
realhostname

==> cat /etc/host.conf
order hosts,bind
multi on
nospoof on
spoofalert on

==> cat /etc/resolv.conf
search realsubdomain.realdomainname.com realdomainname.com
nameserver 192.168.0.2

# ppp temp entry


I confess this isn't a debian box, but it should be :-)
	(It's actually Mandrake, but I don't think that's pertinent to this  
problem)
Why are all domain name requests going to the nameserver first?   
Doesn't host.conf control that?

Comments appreciated
Brian

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