I need a tougher ethernet configuration (SOLVED :D )

[CAVT]

hello to everybodya dn thanks in advance for any help you might bring me. This is my problem:

I cannot make PCLOS to detect properly my internet connection. I have recently installed PCLOS as dual boot along Win XP. My internet connection is provided by my phone company through ADSL, and it arrives to my router (Huawei MT 882) from where it goes to a switch (a generic one, only for ethernet) and with which I share the connection with other two PCs in my flat. The other PCs also use Win XP. My network card is a built-in NVidia, which PCLOS seems to recognize well.
Well, in Windows the connection works flawless on the three computers, but when I tried to configure it in PCLOS using the standard methods it simply didn't work (I tried setting both an Ethernet connection and a DSL connection with no results for both, following the installation instructions). The system says the setting up was made succesfully, but when I try to use Synaptic or Firefox there's no internet... the ethernet port doesn't even flash its light. When I return to Windows it works without problems.
I think I know which is the problem, because when I first connected the switch I had to configure in each one of the PCs the "Speed/Duplex settings" as "Force 10 full duplex" (in the shop where I bought the switch ad the ethernet cables they told me so), and the connection didn't work until I configured that option for the network card. All this is in Windows, before I even thought of installing Linux.
The thing is that I cannot find that option in any part of PCLOS. I haven't either installed any driver, firstly because PCLOS seems to recognize my card, and second because I cannot access internet from Linux.
I hope any of you can guide me. If you need further info you can ask me and I'll try to be as clear as I can. Thank you.

[Xenaflux]

Hi,

I got the same setup as you , except I got a MT880.
I suppose you are working with pclos2009-1/2 and have kde3.5

At the right-bottom, there is an icon ( netapplet ).
Hover your mouse over it.
It should tell you an IP address.
if it tells you 192.168.xxx.xxx , then NO, you have NO internet access.
If it is the case , right click the icon, and click on connect or disconnect several times, and see what happens.
I know this sounds like s... advice , but it is exactly the same thing I have to do every time I installpclos2009 minime on 2 of my 3 computers.

Then there are the network settings in service menu in PCC control center which do influence your setup

If this ( click click ) doesn't make sense to you ( as it doesn't to me ) you can try a manual setup as follows

Open console
su to root
type :    adsl-setup      and answer the questions
If you want to use open DNS, its 208.67.222.222  and 208.67.220.220
Set firewall to 0 for now

Have a look at above and let us know.

PS, anyone !!  club in if you feel, as I am not available tomorrow

[CAVT]

Thank you very much for your quick reply. I'm sorry for not specificating earlier, but I have PCLOS 2007, it's because the distro I have is CAELinux 2008, which uses PCLOS 2007 with KDE environment. The netapp icon wasn't there, but I did the procedure you said in Konsole to the letter. I also checked that the data about my account was correct by looking at the firmware of my router through Windows. I was also using since before OpenDNS, the only thing I cannot rememebr is if I set it only for my PC or if I set it in the router directly.
Well, whatever the previous, it still doesn't recognize my internet connection. If I go to the control center and I access for example the miscelaneous options, it says "checking status" and then shows "not connected". There is one detail I mentioned wrongly before: by doing sometimes the wizard procedure the ethernet led would flash constantly and quick, as if it were looking for signal, no matter if the system is booting or already loaded. After erasing every connection I tried, doing your steps and rebooting, the intermitent flash would stop completely once PCLOS is loaded. Also, if I put the verbose mode while booting, after loading the "demon something" there is one "fail" indication, which I think it's about the connection (the text scrolls fast and I cannot read it well).
In Windows I had to go to the advanced properties of my NVidia controler and set "Speed/Duplex" to "Force 10 Duplex", otherwise it won't even detect a connection, so I think that's my case. Perhaps I should try without the switch, but my flatmates will kill me, lol (unless they are sleeping, muahahaha).
I have tried changing the host name, clicking DHCP options here and there but nothing changes. If I use the command "pppoe-start" after some time it shows time out. It's not that I'm desperate for internet, but certain packages would make my life nicer in PCLOS, lol... I want Lyx for example or that package that allows me to read and write ntfs partitions.
I'm sorry if this is a too common problem, but I couldn't find any answer in the rest of the forum or the wiki.

[Xenaflux]

The netapp icon wasn't there, but

You can find it in : Start/System/Monitoring/NetAplet
Click on it so that it loads in the taskbar ( bottom right )
Then hover your mouse over it ......most probably it will show 192.168.xxx.xxx which is a network connection.
This setting also indicates that in principle you should be able to make a connection.

I would like to know if this is so or not

I'm sorry if this is a too common problem, but I couldn't find any answer in the rest of the forum or the wiki.

No, this is not a common problem. 99.5% don't have that problem, but that doesn't mean you can't get it right.
Just a matter of correctly figuring out what's what.
You hardware is OK, as it works in winders, so , it's a software problem in linux, or maybe not even a problem, but some settings in the configuration somewhere.

Note: this is how I have my settings in the service menu
In PCC/"you will be asked for your password"/System/Manage system services by enabling or disabling them
Bluethooth...off // ip6tables...off // iptables...off // network...off // network-up....ON // pppoe....ON // shorewall ...off

If I change any of them...I get crap after booting up. So, play with them.

Yes, something very fishy going on, but you cam play around with them just to see if it's your lucky day....

[CAVT]

Well, I made a certain advance, but not that much. I did as you said about netapp and it was saying only "eth0 is down" or similar, no IP of any sort, only that text. So I checked carefully my Win settings and realized that I was trying to set up a dinamic IP connection while actually my PC is statically connected to my router, the dynamic thing is applied to the router, not to my PC. So I configured manually the account, putting the IP, gateway and net submask (the wizard asked for the netmask, but I supposed it was the same). By doing so the netapp showed some colours and if I hovered the mouse it showed the IP and gateway I put... but when trying to use Konqueror, Firefox or Synaptic nothing happened, it appeared as if it were trying to find the webpage (before it would simply state that no server was found).
I opened the connection monitor by clicking on the netapp icon and it was showing that from time to time a couple of bps would move from here to there (and only bps, about 60bps with luck). Interestingly, there as in the monitor a button saying "connect ethernet" and below it there was a legend saying that I wasn't connected. So I pressed it, and the legend was showing "connecting to internet..." and it got frozen there. I waited some minutes and nothing was happening, it simply got iddle, and that happened everytime I tried doing the same. The same happened when I tried to set up the connection and DSL. I tried too connect and siconnect several times with the right-click menu on netapp but it was the same.
I attached a screenshot of my configuration in Windows (yes, it's in Spanish, sorry). I set up that on Linux and also tried changing some numbers like the IP, gateway and submask; sometimes it would accept the changes and others it would show again "eth0 is down" but always unable to use internet as it should be. I didn't do that thing of enabling or disabling services because I really didn't dare to touch anything that could cause a problem. I only tried starting one pppoe service, but it showed a timeout and returned to its stopped state.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[DeBaas]

Found something for the CLI terminal like:

ethtool -s eth0 speed 10 duplex half

maybe of help ?

[root@K7-2400 ~]# ethtool -h
ethtool version 3           
Usage:                     
        ethtool DEVNAME     
        ethtool -a DEVNAME 
        ethtool -A DEVNAME \
                [ autoneg on|off ] \
                [ rx on|off ] \     
                [ tx on|off ]       
        ethtool -c DEVNAME         
        ethtool -C DEVNAME \       
                [adaptive-rx on|off] \
                [adaptive-tx on|off] \
                [rx-usecs N] \       
                [rx-frames N] \       
                [rx-usecs-irq N] \   
                [rx-frames-irq N] \   
                [tx-usecs N] \       
                [tx-frames N] \       
                [tx-usecs-irq N] \   
                [tx-frames-irq N] \   
                [stats-block-usecs N] \
                [pkt-rate-low N] \     
                [rx-usecs-low N] \     
                [rx-frames-low N] \   
                [tx-usecs-low N] \     
                [tx-frames-low N] \   
                [pkt-rate-high N] \   
                [rx-usecs-high N] \   
                [rx-frames-high N] \   
                [tx-usecs-high N] \   
                [tx-frames-high N] \   
                [sample-interval N]   
        ethtool -g DEVNAME             
        ethtool -G DEVNAME \           
                [ rx N ] \             
                [ rx-mini N ] \       
                [ rx-jumbo N ] \       
                [ tx N ]               
        ethtool -i DEVNAME
        ethtool -d DEVNAME [ raw on|off ]
        ethtool -e DEVNAME \
                [ raw on|off ] \
                [ offset N ] \
                [ length N ]
        ethtool -E DEVNAME \
                [ magic N ] \
                [ offset N ] \
                [ value N ]
        ethtool -k DEVNAME
        ethtool -K DEVNAME \
                [ rx on|off ] \
                [ tx on|off ] \
                [ sg on|off ] \
                [ tso on|off ]
        ethtool -r DEVNAME
        ethtool -p DEVNAME [ %d ]
        ethtool -t DEVNAME [online|(offline)]
        ethtool -s DEVNAME \
                [ speed 10|100|1000 ] \
                [ duplex half|full ]    \
                [ port tp|aui|bnc|mii|fibre ] \
                [ autoneg on|off ] \
                [ phyad %d ] \
                [ xcvr internal|external ] \
                [ wol p|u|m|b|a|g|s|d... ] \
                [ sopass %x:%x:%x:%x:%x:%x ] \
                [ msglvl %d ]
        ethtool -S DEVNAME

[CAVT]

I'm writing this post from my PCLOS system! It did, it did!!! Woohoooo!!!

Yes, I used the ethtool:

su root
password [put your root pass here, lol]
ethtool -s eth0 speed 10 duplex full autoneg off

I had to do it a couple of times because while checking with ethtool eth0 it wouldn't show all the changes, but at the end it did, and here am I. The autoneg off is important because it's the equivalent to forcing, otherwise it would not have worked.
For all those in the same problem, you need to check what you have by typing after every setting:
ethtool ethX
X is the number appearing in your connection name (0, 1, 2, ...). The speed, duplex and autonegotiation option should be those you wrote in the previous commands, if they are not repeat the operation.
According to what I have read, it's very probable that in the restart you need to do all the steps again. To make permanent changes you need to write a shell script, but I didn't understand well how to do it. Google "ethtool" and you'll find a couple of things.

Thanks a lot to Xenaflux and DeBaas for their unvaluable help!!! All their advices were crucial to get this issue to an end . We can consider this problem to be solved. Oh, one more thing, I kept the manual configuration of my network.

[Joble]

Would you kindly add (Solved) to the subject line of your original post so others searching for an answer will find it here?

Congratulations on your solution!  Nice writeup.   

[CAVT]

Would you kindly add (Solved) to the subject line of your original post so others searching for an answer will find it here?

Congratulations on your solution!  Nice writeup.   

Done! 
Thanks again for the diligency on helping me. I would kiss you, but my girlfriend will kill me 

[DeBaas]

Kiss me ? Seen my face ? 
Glad you solved it