[GRLUG] Follow-up to my "Ubuntu install" post

[Rick Vargo]

Rich,

First off I would like to stay "WAY TO GO!" for sticking in there.   
Most of us have been using LINUX for many years and have forgotten  
that the first time is quite the learning experience.  Heck, the  
first time installing any distro is still a learning experience as  
they all do stuff slightly different.  I started off with LINUX when  
the 2.0 kernel just came out (using Slackware) when their was no GUI  
install or tools and everything was done via the command line.  Talk  
about a learning curve after being an NT person.  Second, just about  
everything in LINUX is tied to name resolution.  If this is not  
working correctly, then stuff on your system like browsing the net  
will not work correctly.  LINUX is not as forgiving as Windows on this.

Using Ubuntu, you will want to get to know "apt."  Apt is a powerful  
and great tool to install/upgrade packages. "apt-get" will be the apt  
tool you probably use the most.  Also, just to point out... All of  
your network settings are stored under /etc/network/  /etc/hosts and / 
etc/resolv.conf.  Take a look at the "resolvconf" package in the  
UBUNTU repository.  This may help you out with the DNS issues you are  
having.  The easiest thing to do however would be to set the DNS  
servers in your router to point to your ISPs DNS servers instead of  
the internal address of your router.

Have fun,
Rick

On Dec 10, 2005, at 8:57 AM, Rich Nagel wrote:

> I was having problems with Internet access - basically, the Mozilla  
> browser would start up and almost never go anywhere.  When I'd put  
> in a site like www.google.com or http://ubuntulinux.org the browser  
> would sit there with the little circle spinning and a message at  
> the bottom of the screen saying "Finding site."  I was able to use  
> the "Network Tools" and confirm that I could PING both servers,  
> plus I'd downloaded those OS updates earlier so I knew I had valid  
> Internet access.
>
> My network:
>
>
> (Internet/ISP)
>     |
> 69.xxx.xxx.xxx
>     |
> Actiontec DSL modem/router
>     |
> 192.168.0.1
>     |
> Linksys BEFS41 - DHCP enabled, UPnP enabled, etc.
>     |
> 192.168.1.1
>     |
> Cisco 2924EN switch(10/100 24port)
>     |
> (All PCs in the house)
>
>
> Okay, so on all of my Windows boxes, the Primary DNS is 192.168.0.1  
> probably because that's what the Linksys router is getting told by  
> the Actiontec modem/router.  And this presents no problem to the  
> Windows machines - they surf the net, ftp, email, etc. without any  
> problems at all.  On a hunch, I decided to go into the network  
> settings on the Linux box and change the DNS from 192.168.0.1  to   
> 216.165.129.158  which is the Primary DNS server that the Actiontec  
> router gets from the ISP.   Upon doing so, the Linux box is now  
> able to get out to any website without any problem, ie. it's  
> working as it should.
>
> So, the upside is that I can now browse the web on a Linux box, and  
> I have the satisfaction of having solved the problem on my own. :)   
> The downside is that I still don't understand why it failed to work  
> in the first place when the Windows PCs all work fine with the DNS  
> being 192.168.0.1 :(
>
> Anybody got an idea?
> _______________________________________________
> grlug mailing list
> grlug at grandrapids-lug.org
> http://grlug.org/mailman/listinfo/grlug

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://grlug.org/pipermail/grlug/attachments/20051210/38e99fdd/attachment.htm