Another Linux question

[Flying Mullet]

Well I have Linux installed, but now I'm having problems getting an internet connection. So far I've tried two different methods, LinuxConfig and command prompt. My Linux box connects to a router and that router connects to the WAN(internet/outside world). I don't think that I have my ethernet card loaded right because I can't even ping or pull up my router info using it's IP Address. I know that this is a vague start, but it figure it'd be easier to start here and if you have ideas ask me questions to help narrow it down to what the problem might be rather than write down tons of tech specs that might not be needed.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I did 'ifconfig' and it returns a hardware address for 'eth0', so I know that the system sees my card.

EDIT2: I've been roaming google groups/usenet for pointers, and I've also tried the following from them:

as root open /etc/conf.modules with a text editor (gnp or gedit/kedit).
add the following line anywhere:

alias eth0 ne(I've also tried 'alias eth0 rtl8139')

save the file. now in the console type:

/sbin/ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.1 up

if this works, then it's fine....use netcfg to make it permanent.

but when I type in 'netcfg' it tells me that there is no such process and that the network is unreachable.

[Dr Unne]

Setting up internet connections is one thing that varies from distro to distro, so your distro might not have that netcfg program (which I've never heard of). What distro do you have, exactly? http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/ find Customization Guide for your version and it should give info on how to set up a network card.

[Flying Mullet]

Actually I just got it working. I messed something up so that when I shut down and tried to restart and get into bios the machine would just beep at me, so I reinstalled, and I had messed up my network settings, so this time I used DHCP instead at the install and now everything works great.

[Citizen Bleys]

Yes, most hardware routers take the single IP address leased from the ISP and use DHCP to issue IP addresses to the client computers on the network.

In some cases, there can be DHCP reservations; If you can't ping past your gateway (the router, in this case), try rebooting it to clear the DHCP reservation. (This is how it works for me; my ISP has a DHCP reservation, so when I want to switch between my Doze box and my Linux box, I have to reboot the cable modem so that it'll recognize the other NIC.

[Flying Mullet]

I had entered my router info(ip address, netmask, gateway, etc...) into the network setup rather than using DCHP so my computer couldn't get a direct connection and it croaked. This time I set it up DHCP so that it gets its it's info from the router and everyone's happy.

Of course now getting Firebird is being a chore, as the lastest version on their site is too new for RedHat 7 so I'm having to download previous versions to find one that uses GLIBC_2.2.2 rather than GLIBC_2.2.4.

[Citizen Bleys]

Just download Firebird from http://www.mozilla.org/products/firebird

The Linux download comes with a version precompiled for i386; Just download it to your home directory, open a shell prompt, and type the following series of commands

su root # enter your root password when prompted
cp MozillaFirebird-0.7-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.gz /opt # you should use Tab Completion to avoid having to type out the full filename
cd /opt
tar -xzvf MozillaFirebird-0.7-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.gz
exit
exit
Now, on your desktop, create a shortcut (Link to Application) to /opt/MozillaFirebird/MozillaFirebird

No rpm needed, no .configure/make/make install needed, just unzip and run as easily as though it were a Windows program. (Yes, you *can* just double-click on the .tar.gz file in your home directory and unzip it to /opt/MozillaFirebird if you like, I just prefer the command-line)

[Flying Mullet]

I installed version 0.6(0.7 is the newest stable version out there). 0.7 wouldn't run for me. When I tried to run it it gave me an error about some code it needed being too old. I checked usenet and everyone said that an upgrade to RedHat 9 would be easier than trying to copy over the needed files to a new directory, compiling them there, then telling Firebird to point to that folder.

Oh well, either way it's all working now as I'm tryping this reply in Firebird on my Linux box.

[Dr Unne]

Likely that fewer and fewer new programs will support the old glibc as time progresses. Not that you can't keep running the old programs forever if you want to though. Personally I'm an upgrade-whore and I'd go berserk if I didn't have the newest of everything. glibc-2.3.2-r8 for me.

[Citizen Bleys]

I run Firebird 0.7 fine on my RH8 box at school.

[Flying Mullet]

This computer is running RH7