[PLUG] befuddled again

[Michael M.]

Michael Rasmussen wrote:
> 
> While you have no way of recovering your old Ubuntu/Debian install to dissect it. 
> But you know this:  the installs are different, even if you don't recall anything
> different.  The actions of the computer show this.
> 

You are too logical, Mr. Spock.  I think it's Tribble trouble, or 
perhaps the Ghost of Windows Past haunting the castle.

With the two Debian installs less than one week apart:  The first thing 
the Etch beta2 installer does vis-a-vis the network, after it has 
identified the hardware, is configure DHCP.  That succeeded, on both 
installs attempts (and on all previous install attempt of Debian with 
different install discs, on this machine and on the iMac).  After you 
create your user account, it moves on to asking you to select apt 
sources.  Both times, last week and this week, I selected 
ftp.us.debian.org.  Then it tries connecting to the servers to get the 
package list.  Last week, and 99% of the previous occasions I've 
installed some form of Debian, that attempt has failed.  This is the 
first instance in which the problem manifests itself.  I can't reach the 
servers.  I've had to switch over to another console and ping the 
server, then make it try again.  It always succeeds connecting after a 
fresh ping.  This week, I didn't have to do that -- it was successful on 
its first attempt.  All this happens before I am given the opportunity 
to select any packages or do any other customizations.  The only things 
I've done at this point are enter a root password, create a user account 
and choose the servers.

Certainly you're right that *something* is different, *somewhere.*  But 
the install processes up to this point were identical.  If there is 
something that Debian installs later in the process that mucks up my 
connection, it has not yet been installed, on either occasion.  Or if 
something already has been installed that was mucking up the connection, 
it already has been installed on both occasions, from the install disc. 
  At this point there's been no interaction with the outside world. 
However, there has been some interaction with my modem, in configuring 
DHCP.  That's why I'm wondering if in the process of installing Arch 
Linux, or even in the process of booting FreeBSIE, something in the 
modem changed.

I'd like to know what's going on because I'd like to know how to fix it 
-- really fix it, as opposed to the only partly adequate workaround I 
had before -- if it crops up again.

-- 
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions 
of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to 
dream." --S. Jackson