RH 7.1 help.can't see my network

[Tripleshot]

I just installed this distro on a new HDD from a disk at the back of my Linux Bible book. I have the OS up and running with every package that came with it. When I configured the network settings,I hard coded the address. !92.168.XXX.XXX. Well, I went through that and sety my gateway which is a mandrake 7.0 server. I had it join the workgroup that my PC'sare in and I was thnking the gateway would be how it would find the web. I must be thinking of windows. It doesn't work.

I would like to know the command at a terminal that will allow me to edit my configuration in case it is not right,and then make it right. This damn book talks in circles. it doesn't talk about TCP/IP until chapter 20,and I'm still on chapter 3. I wanted to use the web resources for some updates. Can any of you help me out? I will contunue tryingto figure outtyhe book,but a clue would be better than the frustration I'm feeling now.

 

[skriefal]

Terminal command to edit network settings? You probably want to use linuxconf, which allows modification of much more than just network settings.

As far as not being able to access the internet... you really need to narrow down the problem somewhat. Is your network card recognized, and if so is it in use? You can run "ifconfig" at a shell prompt to list the in-use network interfaces, and information (such as associated IP address) for each. If that's all okay, then can your new computer see the Mandrake system at all -- i.e. can it ping the machine that's running Mandrake? If so, then check if your DNS settings are correct... i.e. can you run "nslookup www.yahoo.com" and get valid results? If it can't ping the Mandrake machine, then possibly your netmask may be wrong.

 

[Tripleshot]

You probably want to use linuxconf

How do I do that? I changed from the Gnu desktop to KDE and the consol pinged my mandrake server,but it just ran forever. i had to kill the process to shut it off. is that normal? In ipconfig(Msoft),it runs 4 times and stops. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[skriefal]

No, you're not doing anything wrong. The ping command included with Linux -- and with most Unix-based OS'es -- has always continued to operate until you kill it with Ctrl-C or whatever.

For linuxconf, simply go to a shell prompt -- or open one if you don't already have one -- and type "linuxconf" and hit Enter. The same way you'd start any other program from a command/shell prompt. There's probably also a link somewhere in the Gnome and/or KDE menus to start linuxconf, but I don't know where -- and it's quicker to just run it from a shell prompt IMHO.

 

[Tripleshot]

I typed linuxconf in a shell terminal and it says command not found. do iI need to be logged in as root? I am doing this from my user account.

 

[skriefal]

Yep. You need to be logged in as root in order to run linuxconf. You could also edit the DNS server settings directly by opening the /etc/resolv.conf file in a text editor, but if you're not familiar with the format of that file I'd recommend sticking with linuxconf.

 

[Tripleshot]

I know it is in there,because I did a search and found 11 instances of linuxconf. But it will not run in a root shell by me typing "linuxconf"
I appreciate your help,but this must be a different distro than you have or I am screwed up.And the latter is probably more true than the former.

Edit

I just logged out and back in as root,as apposed to opening a root consol. Now I'm in there and can do what I need. What next?