Wired networking not connecting in Fedora 12 with Windows Internet Connection Sharing

[LinuxLearner123]

Please let me start off by saying that I am in no way trying to utilize Samba. I just want to use Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) to connect to the internet. I have done a massive amount of troubleshooting, but some of it seems to contradict itself, and the only two things that I know for sure are that it used to work, and that my Ethernet cable is not the problem. When I use Terminal utilities like ifup and dhclient it seems that it can not determine IP information, but when I try to put it in manually, the "Apply" button grays out right after I finish typing it in. When I try to connect normally, in KDE or GNOME, the icon acts like it's connecting, then instead of having the connected icon, I receive a notification that "the network has been disconnected", and it goes back to the disconnected icon.
Oh, and by the way, I know that I could probably find a workaround, but I have limited resources, and this used to work. The Linux is a Dell desktop with Fedora 12 and the Windows is a Windows 7 HP laptop.
EDIT: I hope that I didn't mess something up, but I accidentally used system-network-config to try putting in the IP address there, and ended up changing it back to the original settings, but the computer is now calling it Auto Ethernet in the taskbar icon, although sudo iwconfig in the terminal still calls it eth0.

[wilson83]

can you list out clearly what you want to do.

[LinuxLearner123]

can you list out clearly what you want to do.
I want to use Windows Internet Connection Sharing to connect my Linux to the internet through my Windows laptop with an Ethernet cable.

[wilson83]

so you have a windows laptop, which I am assuming is hooked to the internet wirelessly?

and you have an Ethernet cable that runs from the windows laptop to a desktop with fedora loaded on it?

but you cannot connect to the windows computer from the desktop. Does the desktop Ethernet adapter have a Link LED and an Activity LED on it? Does the Link LED light up when the cable is plugged into both computers?

have you tried a crossover cable?

it should do it automatically if you have windows set up to do it, and the Ethernet adapters can communicate through the cable.

[LinuxLearner123]

so you have a windows laptop, which I am assuming is hooked to the internet wirelessly?

and you have an ethernet cable that runs from the windows laptop to a desktop with fedora loaded on it?

but you cannot connect to the windows computer from the desktop. Does the desktop ethernet adapter have a Link LED and an Activity LED on it? Does the Link LED light up when the cable is plugged into both computers?

have you tried a crossover cable?

Yes, the laptop is connected wirelessly. Both LEDs light up on both sides of the connection, and when I used a Terminal tool during troubleshooting to monitor my network activity (I do not remember what it was called), it showed constant activity. Like I said, the setup used to work. Then I didn't use it for a month, and when I tried it one day, it didn't. Sorry, did you mean a USB crossover cable or an Ethernet crossover cable?

[wilson83]

I Meant Ethernet Crossover cable. But I didn't realise that it used to work. Sorry.

If it used to work, it probably didn't when you tried it again because of some windows settings. I would check that or restart ICS.

[stevea]

Most most modern ethernet interfaces do not require crossover cables any more. If yo uhave "link lights" then that problem is solved.

can not determine IP information, implies that the Linux dhcp client negotiation failed. I have no idea how ICS is configures or works, but the ICS DHCP service may be the problem. So is ICS configured to suplpy IP addresses ?

I'd install wireshark, and monitor DHCP traffic as I manually started the dhclient.
OTOH that's an advanced technique and you mey be better off waiting for an ICS expet to reply.

[LinuxLearner123]

I Meant Ethernet Crossover cable. But I didn't realise that it used to work. Sorry.

If it used to work, it probably didn't when you tried it again because of some windows settings. I would check that or restart ICS.

I made sure that the network and ICS settings were the same, but it still didn't work. I think it could very well be Windows's fault, but I don't know where to go from here... Thanks anyway.

---------- Post added at 03:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:53 PM ----------

Most most modern ethernet interfaces do not require crossover cables any more. If yo uhave "link lights" then that problem is solved.

implies that the Linux dhcp client negotiation failed. I have no idea how ICS is configures or works, but the ICS DHCP service may be the problem. So is ICS configured to suplpy IP addresses ?

I'd install wireshark, and monitor DHCP traffic as I manually started the dhclient.
OTOH that's an advanced technique and you mey be better off waiting for an ICS expet to reply.

Which computer would I install Wireshark on?

---------- Post added at 04:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:54 PM ----------

Most most modern ethernet interfaces do not require crossover cables any more. If yo uhave "link lights" then that problem is solved.

implies that the Linux dhcp client negotiation failed. I have no idea how ICS is configures or works, but the ICS DHCP service may be the problem. So is ICS configured to suplpy IP addresses ?

I'd install wireshark, and monitor DHCP traffic as I manually started the dhclient.
OTOH that's an advanced technique and you mey be better off waiting for an ICS expet to reply.

OK, here is the Terminal program that I used to monitor the network activity:

tcpdump -i eth0

Now, I'm not even going to pretend that I know what the outcome meant, I just knew what it did and that it was constantly moving. Will Wireshark do the same thing, or is it different?

EDIT: OK, I just rebooted it, now network manager says it has auto eth0 and auto ethernet.