At 06:50 PM 12/15/2002 -0500, you wrote:
Great. Now I feel like a total idiot. Heh, thx Slick :) Your explanation makes more sense...and I suppose I'm just a bit frustrated its not working the way I expect it to. Sigh. Sue me. I've used winsux too long? :PI never thought to go any further on my original answer, which might have given you some peace of mind on this. I have had one of those weeks, and my weekend was spent on my knees tearing my network apart and cleaning. (Yuck! I hate cleaning!) Maybe this will put it all into perspective for you, Femme...If you install a client, adapter and the TCP/IP protocol in any version of Windows 95 or newer, you technically the DHCP client already installed an available for use. Many Linux distros make it appear that simple upon installation. When you see that screen that asks you about how you want to configure your network card, there's usually a radio button or check box that you can click on to have the IP address automatically assigned (bootp or dhcp, depending on the distro and its age). Once you check off that you want to get your machine's IP automatically from an outside source, the distro installs the DHCP client from the CD. If you installed with static addressing in mind, and also asked for the ability to select what packages you want to install, you could purposely uncheck the anything to do with DHCP and therefore not have it on your system. I have no idea what Mandrake would do if you went into MCC and tried to configure the NIC for DHCP assigned IP addressing if the client wasn't on the system. Would it call for your CD to install? If it's on your system, it will just make it happen. The installation of the DHCP client in Linux is almost as automatic now as it is in Windows. Keep in mind that OEM installations of Windows have all the installation CABs on the hard drive, so every time you install a new feature or driver, it looks pretty much like it is doing it all for you. If you had the disk space and were so inclined, you could copy the contents of all your distro CDs onto the hard drive and then update the location in Package Manager. Not exactly as automatic, but a lot closer to being that way. Femme, if you installed telling Mandrake Linux that you wanted to see an assigned IP address to your NIC on boot-up, the DHCP client was installed then. Needing to statically address, or desiring to, just means something has been added to the system that needs to see some control, or lack of it. If it's just one box, statically addressing and doing the HOSTS stuff in no big deal. If you want some help, write me off-server. Glad to help you through, if you so desire. T
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FemmeFatale
Good Decisions You boss Made:
"We'll do as you suggest and go with Linux. I've always liked that
character from Peanuts."
- Source: Dilbert
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