[operator]

hello everyone,
sorry to fill up inboxes, but this time i can't really get slack to get online - just installed the newest slack12.1 and everything went perfectly as usual, however, when i started fiddling with it I noticed that it wouldn't get online at all (none of the browsers, just to avoid confusion with a previous thread i started a while ago, but then resolved) - pinging the router is out of the question, and obviously all the cables are properly plugged in just in case!
anyone has had similar problem? if so, how did you fix it?

I have a second question that was bothering me since I had this little inconvenient: is there a way to upgrade to a newer release without re-installing the entire OS? cos obviously you may try to understand the frustrations when passing from an 'old' working release to a 'newer' not working release - before installing I run slapt-get --update, and slapt-get --upgrade and I included on slapt-getrc kernel, alsa, glibc, etc... on top of the default included package-sources, but it didnt upgrade the release.

many thanks

[Dapper Dan]

Hi operator... What does:

/sbin/ifconfig

return? Any way to post the results here? You say none of the browsers work... Do they immediately return a "not found" message, or do they take a while, then mention about not being able to resolve?

[operator]

hello dan,
first of all many thanks for your quick help-response
secondly, apologies for not been more detailed before, and as you asked, below is the return of /sbin/ifconfig:

Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
Rx packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
Tx packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carriers:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
Rx bytes:560 (560.0 B) Tx bytes:560 (560.0 B)

as for the browser behaviour they (all of them) go straight on a 'not found' page - in terms of what I have tried so far: netconfig (and everything seemed ok eventhough I reconfigured it), 'about:config' on all browser and set the 'ipv6' boolean to 'true' (which previously solved a similar problem), obviously checked that all cables are nicely fitted it (and they are), also checked that it was not a hardware problem in fatc the winOS istalled (dual partitions box) flies on the net; and that's it at the moment - probably tomorrow after work i'll spend another cpl of hrs on it to find the bug.

Anyway, if you have any more rapid suggestions I always welcome them.

p.s.: although this may just sound silly, I have to say that I didn't pay too much attention to the installation process as I was not expecting this kind of trouble. Please, you may quote on this.

pp.ss.: apologies if I dont post the dmesg in here as but, being unable to get online straight from the slack box, it would be too long to hand-type all that on my laptop, which is what i'm using to actually visit the Linux-forum

many thanx again

[Freston]

Nope, it's not working for you. All ifconfig displays is your loopback.

First we'll find out if any interfaces are found and recognized:

/sbin/ifconfig -a

It should gine at least interface 'lo', but what we are looking for is one named similar to 'eth0' 'eth1'

Maybe it's just a question of bringing up the interface (although I doubt it, but it's worth a shot)

/sbin/ifconfig eth0 up

where eth0 should be replaced with the name of the interface you found in the previous command.
And then:

/sbin/ifconfig

Any errors? Does your eth* interface get listed now?

If no errors and the device shows up, can you ping your router? Can you see whether you have an IP address now?


--if not--

Check to see whether in /etc/rc.d/ the following files are executable:
rc.inetd
rc.inet1
Post here if this is not the case

Do you use DHCP or a static address? How did you configure it during setup?


dmesg output may not be of much use here, unless this shows up with errors:

dmesg | grep eth0

Again, eth0 should be replaced with the name of the interface you found in the first command.


---

As for your other question about upgrading rather than doing a clean install, read at least these documents:
changes and hints
upgrade

[operator]

thanks freston for the useful advice,
you were right! i noticed that my 'eth0' was down (i believe) - on '/sbin/ifconfig' as previously posted i had just the loopback, now i have the list of 'eth0' 'eth1' and 'lo' - when i run '/sbin/ifconfig' i have:
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr...........
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 carriers:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
Rx bytes:0 (0.0 B) Tx bytes:0 (0.0 B)

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr...........
inet6 addr: fe80::210:4bff..............
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
Rx packets:1266 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
Tx packets:3 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carriers:1
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
Rx bytes:450988 (440.4 KiB) Tx bytes:238 (238.0 B)
Interrupting:21 Base address:0xbc00

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask 250.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
Rx packets:48 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
Tx packets:48 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carriers:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
Rx bytes:3288 (3.2 KiB) Tx bytes:3288 (3.2 KiB)

At this point no IPaddress and not possibile to ping 'router' - however checked the excutable files 'rc.inetd' and 'rc.inet1' and this what i dot, respectively:
'usage ./rc.inetd start|stop|restart

'Polling for DHCP server on interface eth0:
./rc.inet1: line 118: ifconfig: command not found
./rc.inet1: line 120: ifconfig: command not found
No carrier detected on eth0. reducing DHCP timeout to 10 seonds.
**** /sbin/dhcpcd: not a superuser

I might be wrong but it seems to me that some line are missing on the file 'rc.inet1', but honestly I could be totally wrong (and not an expert on networking) - I also tried as a superuser and still it doesn't seem to be able to ping the router or to have an IPaddress.

Any suggestions?

p.s.: Sorry, the whole thing has been hand-copied/typed and therefore allow some 'typo'

[Dapper Dan]

It appears to me all you need now is an ip address. As it appears also that eth1 is more "active," try:

/sbin/dhcpcd eth1

Then do:

/sbin/ifconfig

...again and see if you get one.

[operator]

Once again you guys did it! many thnks, all seems now to be working - i have only one more question? why did this happen? (my fault during installation or just an old box?) will the eth1 now stay acitive every time i switch on/off? or would i be troubled again?

many thnx again

[Dapper Dan]

You should either run netconfig again, answering positive to the question about watning dhcp. That should set everything up for you. If not, you need to configure /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf "by hand." Look in the section about eth1 and set it up for dhcp. The lines should already be there, you just have to "uncomment" them. Also, be sure to fill in default gateway. That would be the IP of your router, or the IP of your ISP. If you get it configured correctly, you'll get connected on start up every time.

[operator]

thanx a lot, dan and freston
all sorted out now - however for some real reason when i reconfigured 'netconfig' it went back to the original state 'not connecting' (i believe it just didnt like the dhcp activity; so i reconfigured manually /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf and now everything seems to be ok!
many thanks again