network problem

[Aidan Gauland]

Hello,

 I've got a really weird problem with my laptop.  What I've been doing that 
has worked up until now is connect my laptop and desktop via a loopback 
ethernet cable, and giving each a static IP address using the network manager 
GUI (I'm using GNOME), and we're off.  When I try to do that now, the laptop's 
IP address changes to 169.254.93.80 within a few seconds of connecting (I can 
see this only with ifconfig, but not the GUI).  Looking at the system log, I 
see a bunch of messages about DHCPDISCOVER and eventually a message from 
NetworkManager saying "No DHCP reply received.  Automatically obtaining IP via 
Zeroconf."  And goes on to say that it's using IP address 169.254.93.80

 I don't have the zeroconf package installed, and I can use the laptop on my 
school's LAN with no problems.  The only recent change I have made to my 
system is installing Firestarter, but I turned all that off to try and solve 
this problem.

Thanks,
Aidan