That damn USB modem connection and software! Why do they have to rope us? You're experiencing a similar crappy problem to a person who has an unsupported winmodem - except that you can't just go change modems or connection software. If you had problems with the other Windows computer accessing the internet, I'd be sure it was ICS, but that's not the case. I don't like to admit defeat! (perhaps I won't...)

I know, I don't know why hughes made the connection use usb instead of cat5. Actually, to think about it, I do.

They made the DW4000 a while ago, I've had it for a few years now.
Later, they make a *new* modem that uses cat5, and they advertise so *any* network can use it.. so I could guess it's a marketing strategy, since it's a few hundred dollars to upgrade.. They're all about making money.

They even rope me with internet. I have no other options out where I live, and satellite is my last resort. So I take it and suck up a huge bill at the end of the month.. plus a $1,000 installation fee.. ouch. Guess it's nice to have good speeds though, even though I do have a 169mb download limit in 4hours..

Can't wait until REAL broadband is offered out here.

PS. Also carrying this topic on at linuxforum.com to see if anyone there has any ideas.. if I get it working I'll be sure to post the solution here.

Also, I downloaded windump (don't know if it was someone here that reccommended it or not..) but it never really *does* anything. just kind of sits there. Supposed to be like tcpdump for windows.

still working on this.
Went and bought some crossover cables and hoooked them up, with no luck.
When I turn on the slack machine, xp does bring a box up saying network connection detected etc etc, but I'm still unable to ping or anything.
Guess I'm going to buy a new NIC sometime and see if that's the problem.. if it is I'm going to be so mad at myself... lol

if you can't ping anything what does ifconfig output?

here's ifconfig

I've had the box up for a few days just sitting htere, which explains the almost large amount of receive and transmit. Large for only doing requests, anyways.

Not using the switch right now either. Going to keep the crossover cable in until I can get this up possibly.

Good plan. Fewer weak links in the chain for now.

Question before I go out and spend money on a new NIC..

when I run the command lspci, it is detected.
Is there a possibility it is still the NIC? Is there any way I can configure the NIC?

Lets review, then.

Right now, you have the XP box connected to the USB modem.
Your the machines are connected via ethernet with a crossover cable.

How is the Slack box getting its IP? DHCP? Or did you set it static?
Can the XP box "see" the Slack box?
Do either see with ping?

Is your ICS set to the right adaptors?
Your NIC on the XP box needs to be an internal address and the DHCP server needs to be on that interface(if you use DHCP).
Your usb interface needs to be the "sharing interface" to route.

On the client, you need:
dhcpd to run if you're getting an ip via dhcp
/etc/network/interfaces to have eth0 and its IP (192.168.0.x) and gateway listed with the XP IP (which is usually 192.168.0.1)
/etc/resolv.conf to have your DNS nameserver IP listed
Your ethernet module needs to be loaded for this to even work at all (which ifconfig has shown to be true).

Is there anything that I have written that is not the same on your setup? Did I leave anything out?

I'm just trying to bring this back to basics and see if we are missing something small.

the slack box is static.
the xp box can't see the slack box, or vice versa.
the slack box can 'see' the ping, which I know by using tcpdump.

ICS is set to the right adapter.
NIC on xp box is set to 192.168.0.1

on slack box, eth0 is set to 192.168.0.54
haven't done the nameserver yet, but I didn't figure I need to while all I am trying to do is either a) ping the host or b) ping outside sites by using their IP's.

Most everything you said is the same as my setup.

Since the requests aren't being dropped, it seems tha tthey are talking. IU wonder if another protocol would work. Have you thought about trying a SOCKS proxy to see if it'll poke through? You could run the little one from AnalogX and see if you could get something going on that (I'm grasping at straws now)

I haven't tried another protocol, becuase I've never really strayed away from icmp while setting up networks and seeing if the connections are alive.

What would I need to get from analogx? I looked through, and I don't know which protocols what use, maybe the proxy tool?

I think the server is just called proxy

Where does your dialup account fit in all of this? Do you need it for uploads? Or, are you 2-way?

I'm on 2-way, I just have the dialup account for my games that I play online since satellite has such extremely high latency issues (~2seconds)

It doesn't really fit into any of this so far, except I tried using it for ICS to see if that helped any, but didn't.

Ever thought about doing this?