xubuntu network connection - help

[jadube]

I have installed xubuntu (current release) on an old sony laptop. I am unable to get a working network connection to my ethernet router. I set it for static IP with 192.168... etc, and a local gateway.. but cannot even ping. The laptop has a wired eth port that works under WinXP. I'm 'noobish' and not sure how to troubleshoot this - any suggestions?

thanks for any advice.

[ynilesh]

Can you please paste the output of

ifconfig

route

[Chris H]

You say you set it for static ip, why not auto? Always worked for me, never had to use a static ip when connecting to any of my routers.

Assuming your router is set to generate ips automatically.

[jadube]

Here is an update of the problem....I found that my network settings are not being saved and that seems to be the main problem. If I use System>Network and set the wireless connection to use WPA2, and enter the password - the connection works. Sometime later the connection drops and when I look at network settings it is set for WPA (so there is no connection.) I also get the following message when I boot:
Could not lookup Internet address for sony1.
This will prevent xfce from operating correctly
It may be possible to correct the problem by adding sony1 to the file /etc/hosts This is a home networks with 2 other XP computers behind a Dlink router set to use static IPs - and everything works fine except the problem described here with xubuntu. Below is hosts file, and output from ifconfig, and route.

127.0.0.1 localhost sony1.local
127.0.1.1 sony1.local sony1.local

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts
==========
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:46:bf:db:c5 
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:04:23:8e:a6:35 
          inet addr:192.168.0.66  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::204:23ff:fe8e:a635/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:3852 errors:1568 dropped:1567 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4002 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:1115655 (1.0 MB)  TX bytes:508468 (496.5 KB)
          Interrupt:9 Base address:0xe000 Memory:d0201000-d0201fff

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback 
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:559 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:559 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:43985 (42.9 KB)  TX bytes:43985 (42.9 KB)
==============
james@sony1:/etc$ route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.0.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth1
link-local      *               255.255.0.0     U     1000   0        0 eth1
default         192.168.0.1     0.0.0.0         UG    100    0        0 eth1
===================

thanks for the replies and any further ideas. note that the profile below is for a different machine - the system in question is an old Sony Laptop with Xubuntu (hardy heron xfce, gnome)