Stupid nOOb with boot up problems, internet problems...the works.

[phearthepenguin]

Hello to you all...I have been trolling the pages of this forum as well as many others but this is my first post as I have been trying to find the answers on my own but it's turning into more of a time consuming experience hitting brick wall after brick wall and so now I am going to ask these questions...please bare with me as I am TOTALLY new to linux. I am one of those people that are getting fed up with Windows and their stupid licencing and software patches and blah blah blah so I am sure the good people out here in the Linux community can feel my pain. Anyway, on to my questions...

I have recently installed FC5 on an old Biostar mobo, AMD K7 600MHz CPU, with 265MB RAM and a 6GB HD. It installed flawlessly and was running very smooth UNTIL I wanted to connect it to the internet. When I initially installed FC5 I had an old legacy 10Mbps ethernet card in it but FC5 would not see it so I switched to a 3Com 100Mbps card and it sees it fine. I have this machine at work so I had to statically assign an IP which I did accurately I believe. Since I have started screwing around with the network card configuration my machine now runs soooooooooooo slow. When it boots up it hangs at Sendmail and SM-Client. Since I have been typing this it has been hanging on the Fedora "splash screen" (I realize it's not really a splash screen but it's the only terminology I can think of to even remotely describe what I am seeing) where it is loading Nautilus and other services when you see the desktop trying to load in the background. I am using GNOME as my GUI as well. When I finally get my desktop to show up I click on Firefox to try and get to Google and it just sits here spinning it's wheels and then tells me page cannot be displayed.

Basically I am getting discouraged and need to be pointed in the right direction. I am not good with command line either so this is all a totally new learning experience and I, one day, hope to be a good with a Linux box as I am with a Windows box.

So, I am calling out to all you Linux guru's out there that have the time and patience to try and help me out with this issue.

Thanks in advance and I hope to hear from someone in the near future.

[ccrvic]

Originally Posted by phearthepenguin

I have this machine at work so I had to statically assign an IP which I did accurately I believe. Since I have started screwing around with the network card configuration my machine now runs soooooooooooo slow. When it boots up it hangs at Sendmail and SM-Client.

That's a classic symptom of DNS problems.

What do you get from "cat /etc/resolv.conf" and "route -n" ?

Vic.

[phearthepenguin]

Well a new symptom has just recently surfaced...it takes FOREVER for a terminal window now...bizarre.

To answer your question when I type cat /etc/resolv.conf I get this:
registrar.usf.edu
nameserver 131.247.80.19
4.2.2.2

And when I type route -n I get this:
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
131.247.83.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
0.0.0.0 131.247.83.254 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0

I realize there is something funky going on here and it's staring me in the face but maybe I am just blind to it. It appears I have no gateway and a bum destination IP.

[ccrvic]

Originally Posted by phearthepenguin

when I type cat /etc/resolv.conf I get this:
registrar.usf.edu
nameserver 131.247.80.19
4.2.2.2

That looks borked. You appear to have two lines in there that won't even parse...

IIWY, I'd run DNS on that machine :-

service named start

(to make this persistent, use "chkconfig --level 345 named on")

Then set your resolver up to use the local DNS :

echo "nameserver 127.0.0.1" > /etc/resolv.conf

Originally Posted by phearthepenguin

It appears I have no gateway and a bum destination IP.

As long as you're at the University of South Florida, your routes appear to be OK.

What's in your /etc/hosts file?

Vic.

[phearthepenguin]

well I put in all the commands you suggested but I guess I was a little unsure about the: echo "nameserver 127.0.0.1" > /etc/resolv.conf. Were you suggesting that I replace where you have "nameserver 127.0.0.1" with something else or just type that in? Also with the chkconfig --level 345 named on. Am I supposed to replace what you have typed with other entries? Sorry to sound like such a n00b.

Also, I type in etc/hosts file and I get No such file or directory.

[ccrvic]

Originally Posted by phearthepenguin

I was a little unsure about the: echo "nameserver 127.0.0.1" > /etc/resolv.conf. Were you suggesting that I replace where you have "nameserver 127.0.0.1" with something else or just type that in?

No, that's the command. It will replace your /etc/resolv.conf with a single line, telling the resolver to use the nameserver on the local machine.

Originally Posted by phearthepenguin

Also with the chkconfig --level 345 named on. Am I supposed to replace what you have typed with other entries?

No. That just turns "named" (the nameserver daemon) on in runlevels 3, 4, and 5.

Originally Posted by phearthepenguin

Also, I type in etc/hosts file and I get No such file or directory.

Try "cat /etc/hosts". If you still get "no such file", we've found your problem...

Vic.

[phearthepenguin]

I still get No such file or directory

[ccrvic]

Originally Posted by phearthepenguin

I still get No such file or directory

Then we've found your problem. No hosts file.

At the very least, /etc/hosts needs to contain :-

127.0.0.1     localhost.localdomain   localhost

The standard version actually has the following at the top :-

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.

And that'll be what you're seeing.

Vic.

[phearthepenguin]

I do see that I have a host.conf, hosts, hosts.allow, hosts.bak, and hosts.deny...you just want me to add the entry 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost to the hosts file correct?

[ccrvic]

Originally Posted by phearthepenguin

I do see that I have a ... hosts

...

you just want me to add the entry 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost to the hosts file correct?

No - I want to make sure your hosts file is intact. Earlier, you told me it doesn't exist. Now you're telling me it does. It needs to exist, and will cause problems if it doesn't.

So cat it & show us that it is sound.

Vic.

[phearthepenguin]

This is crazy...if I type cat /etc/hosts I get No such file or directory but I can go directly to the /etc directory and it's there...I don't get it. Now, if I do a dir in the /etc/ directory I see the host file there along with a host~ file. Any ideas? It won't cat.

[phearthepenguin]

This is crazy...if I type cat /etc/hosts I get No such file or directory but I can go directly to the /etc directory and it's there...I don't get it. Now, if I do a dir in the /etc/ directory I see the hosts file there along with a hosts~ file. Any ideas? It won't cat.

[ccrvic]

Originally Posted by phearthepenguin

This is crazy...if I type cat /etc/hosts I get No such file or directory but I can go directly to the /etc directory and it's there.

What do you get from

ls -ld /etc/h*

Vic.

[phearthepenguin]

This is what I have:
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jun 30 17:07 /etc/hal
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17 Jul 23 2000 /etc/host.conf
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 41 Jul 18 12:25 /etc/hosts
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jul 18 12:25 /etc/hosts~
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 161 Jan 12 2000 /etc/hosts.allow
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 147 Jun 30 18:01 /etc/hosts.bak
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 347 Jan 12 2000 /etc/hosts.deny
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 30 17:43 /etc/hp
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jun 30 16:59 /etc/httpd

[phearthepenguin]

Ok, I just did performed cat /etc/hosts and got this:
127.0.0.1 locahost.localdomain localhost

I guess we're on the right track but I still don't have internet access.