A dualboot machine has Win98, with Potato x86/linux installed using the test CDs as available from about three weeks ago. It did not have the option of being a slink machine because the application requires utah-glx for accelerated 3D support.
All my local machines are slink->potato upgrades; this one (which is 100 miles away at the end of a voice telephone) is my first directly-to-potato installed system. It was originally installed with no network interfaces, and everything (non-internet) seems to be working fine. A tulip card was recently added, and Win98 can now use the cable modem fine, but I'm having trouble with the Debian side. I talked the owner through creating an /etc/init.d/network which seems to work fine when manually executed, even though it does not have the softlinks from the rc*.d directories yet. The ifconfig and route listings are verbally read back ok. But, if it pings its gateway (for example), the new entry appears in the "arp -n" listing. But it never gets resolved and so the system is unable to route IP traffic outbound. Something somewhere is blocking the arp from operating; I'd appreciate suggestions of what I must have forgotten. The obvious solution is to discard my /etc/init.d/network file and try filling in the blanks inside /etc/network/interfaces to see whether it magically fixes the problem. I'd like some reason for believing that this will work before starting. I'd prefer find the trivial little configuration error that I've made, and fix it so the system appears on the internet. I can then complete the rest of the setup effort directly. Alex.
