well, you wouldn't believe it. i barely do, and i saw it. it was a hardware problem. and not just that, a physical hardware problem.
the dongle on my intel pcmcia ethernet card attached just loosely enough to the cat-5 connector that if it's inserted one way -- with a twist that is not readily visible -- the connection is broken. but if it's inserted the other way -- without the twist -- the connection is good. and i apparently pick up the card and insert it with the twist just about half the time. dhcp does in fact rewrite /etc/hosts. everything works as everyone here predicted. hotplugging works. i even switched network cards and all works. and the problem would have happened with any connection on any machine. but the tp-240 has its pcmcia slot on the left, at the front, while all the other notebooks i have used the card with have it at the right, on the back, where the tension on the connection doesn't come into play. it's a frigging loose connection that coincided with the several times i tried different things. unbelievable. thanks, everyone, because i've learned from all of you, even though the problem was, well . . . embarrassing. -- dep http://www.linuxandmain.com -- outside the box, barely within the envelope, and no animated paperclip anywhere. _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list - http://linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Archives,and Digests are located at the above URL.
