Im not exactly a network noob, but this has me stumped. I just got a new (slightly used) laptop for free. it works great, but it didn't have a wireless card. my desktop has a wireless USB dongle, and my server has a nice wireless card. all 3 have ethernet ports, that Ive never used for anything, but have no reason to think are damaged. in order to get my laptop a wi-fi connection, i decided to use the USB dongle on that till I can get a pcmcia card to go with it, and have the ubuntu machine (my server) share its connection with my desktop via ethernet.

first thing I did was configure my eth0 interface (the ethernet card) to an IP address of 192.168.2.1 (the eth1 interface--wireless-- is 192.168.1.250). then I installed firestarter, and told it to share the eth1 connection with eth0. then I double checked my settings, rebooted, and made sure all settings were still properly intact. Then I went over to the windows machine, manually set it to connect to the ubuntu machine (ip 192.168.2.3, mask 255.255.255.0, gateway 192.168.2.1). and turned it off. then I plugged 'em together with an ethernet cord I knew was working (it had previously been in use with a printer, and had never given any problems), and turned the windows compy back on. it then proceded to vigorously claim "Media State....Disconnected". Firestarter seemed to be running fine, and I could ping eth0 fine from the terminal on the ubuntu machine, but there didn't seem to be any connection between them.

after some thinking I decided to test it out using ICS on my lappy. pretty much the same configuration, and what do you know? both the lappy and the desktop were claiming "Media State....Disconnected" on the ethernet port. anybody have any suggestions? Ive tried both setups now with different ethernet cords, triple-checked the settings, and haven't been able to find anything wrong. nor do any of the computers report driver (or any other) issues with their ethernet cards.

a tad bit off topic, but wifi cards are you using (I am beating my head against a wall to get mine to work).

As for ICS, don't know much on how to do in Linux, could tell you how to do it blindfolded in Windows.

wmp54gs for the linux box, and a dwl-122 for the lappy.

and on linux all you have to do is set up a routing table...I use Firestarter to do it.

Since you aren't using a switch, you have to use a crossover ethernet cable, not a 'standard' ethernet cable

Here's a nice pic showing the differences:

http://www.bb-elec.com/images/EthernetRJ45A.gif

You have two options:
1) go buy an ethernet cable
2) Just cut the one you got in half, and then reconnect the wires so that it forms a crossover cable. A bit tricky to do, but it does work just fine

As for internet connection sharing in linux, I'm not at all familiar with Firestarter, but I have set one up just fine using plain ol' iptables ( http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/home-router-howto.xml )

Firestart is just a graphical front end for iptables designed for use with connection sharing and setting up firewalls, hmmm, I can probably get a crossover cable at school from someone who works there...we only have one here, but our school has a CAT-5 crimping set+tester

Drat, Kllrnohj beat me to the crossover cable comment. :/

as much as I love macs they sure teach you bad habits.....anywho, Im gonna go down and see if the computer lab people will give me 5 feet of cat5

You'll also need two RJ45 jacks and a crimper.

Its not just macs dude, but most modern NIC chipsets will detect and compensate for an incorrect cable type - Apple would have still smacked you upside the head for using the wrong cable, anyway

I know, Ive made ethernet cables before, our school has a kit :p

anywho got one.

@Kllrnohj: modern chipset explains a lot, the Apples I work with tend to be G4 our higher.....the Windows/Linux computers I work with tend to be P3 or lower.....

They have a kit, and you know how? You're lucky; the first bit of hands-on cabling experience I got was in college.

Cableing isn't really hard, I made my own super-long telephone line when we were stuck on dial-up back in the day. Since my room didn't have a phone-line jack, I just ran it down the hall to my parents room, which did. Heh, all for dial-up

yeah they have all the jacks, CAT-5, testing box thingamajigger, its how the nerd crew makes money when they dont have anything else for us to do, we make ethernet cables for them....

Ah, that's why. We had faculty IT that did all of that stuff in high school.

yeah, I hate that. We have a networking class in my high school and we don't actually touch hardware, it is software only.

Also elf, can you help me get my WMP54G card working in Linux?

sure, I see you're on AIM now so Ill talk to you