Ethernet controller not connected - why?

I have just re-installed OS 11 on a newly formatted hard disk. There is no LAN or Internet connectivity on a hardware configuration which has provided these under both Windows and a previous installtion of OS 11.

The system tells me that my ethernet controlller is not connected and that no network exists. I am requested to configure the card, but no matter what I do I end up with the same status: “unable to configure network card because kernel device (eth0 or wlan0) is not present. See dmesg report details”

This did not happen the first time I installed OS11 - it worked as expected, right out of the box on my Dell system with on-board 10/100 ethernet connection.

What other things should I be doing?

When I try to configure the card I am asked what domain name should be used. My computer is on a peer-ro-peer home LAN - there is no domain controller. How should I set the domain name?

I am asked to set the hostname - but I don’t know what this is (in concept and in detail).

My computer is conected to a cable modem via a router running NAT and providing DHCP to computers on my LAN.

Jeez - I know what you mean. This product is not ready for the general public yet. I have the same problem except my NIC displays “no hwinfo” while my wireless displays “not connected”

Help, also cannot fully compile KDE Network…

So did you look at the boot messages using dmesg as suggested?

No, simply because I could not find this report. I don’t know its file name or file type, so I couldn’t search for it. Where is it filed? And how could I have discovered that information (then I’ll know how to look at it next time)?

Will this report tell me what domain name and hostname I should be using?

Why didn’t OS11 ask for this information the first time I installed?

Just run

dmesg

and it will display all the kernel messages since the current boot. To save them to a file

dmesg > messages.txt

Then look with a text editor for lines pertaining to your ethernet controller to see why it wasn’t detected this time around.

Ah! Thanks - I was looking for a filed report! Thanks for the guidance.

I’m embarrassed to say that this morning I made my previous thread reply from Windows/IE7, then powered on this Linux system for the first time today to follow your guidance.

Result: Internet and Home LAN connectivity is available from power-on!

I went through a number of reset and power-off cycles yesterday trying to achieve this result. Now this sort of nehaviour is most disconcerting to a naive user: yesterday it wouldn’t work. I leave it overnight; I make no changes; today it works.

I can’t find the lessons to learn. I have no more information (aside from now knowing how to access dmesg output) than I did before. So, if it breaks again, will I have to come back to the forum and ask again, instaed of being able to solve it for myself?

(Perhaps dmesg output will be all that I require…)

Sorry to crash you guys earlier, but after some serious thinking i managed to get all connections working and managed to install KDE network tool.
I am a Windows advanced user MSCE,MCSA,MCSE plus I and E, and i am new this weekend to Suse11.
Still i would say this software is for advanced users not the gen pub, but i am glad i managed to sort all issues out. Only issue left is to VNC externally to my Suse box, but i am off for a nice walk first!!

Will start a new thread about the VNC thing. Thanks guys!!