Can't connect to the internet (dhcp) at a VAIO VGN AR250G Notebook + 512MB RAM

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[Benny]

After finally been able to boot DSL 4.10 or above at this notebook, contrary to what happens at an HP with DSL 4.2? (old versioon ~2005) that boots from a pendrive & gets connected automatically, here I can't find a way to get connected even though the dsl-modem is 'connected' before starting to boot DSL (frugal).

It might be a cheatcode that's lacking at menu.lst or a misunderstanding of the panel at DSL for configuration.

I also had a problem establishing a backup for general configurations that I think I already solved but I've to reboot for been certain of that. I think that there's something to be added to the menu.lst file at the "boot" line for restoring that backup.

A little help is needed with these, thanks for your efforts with the community!

[CNK]

So you're using the window accessed from the DSL menu under "Setup>Net Setup>netcardconf"? I'm also assuming that you are connecting with ethernet even though you said "modem". DHCP isn't relevent to a dial-up connection with a modem.

In that case, if it isn't working with the dhcp box checked, then try opening a terminal window and typing "ifconfig eth0". If this responds with something along the lines of "interface not found", try "ifconfig" on its own and look at the different interface names along the left. "lo" can be ignored, if the computer has wireless support, then that interface may be listed as well (if it is eth0 then that may be the problem), but one entry should be the ethernet interface (if your wireless interface is eth0, then it will probably be eth1).

[Benny]

Your 1st assumption is correct as is the 2nd one, CNK.

You also can assume that for our communications to take effect I'm using another distro: PL528. While working from my puppy I made a copy of this last message of yours & put it at sda2's root with the purpose of reading it while at DSL. It didn't work ok because DSL couldn't find it. I returned to puppy & moved it to sda1's root. It didn't work, neither. I the moved it to the KNOPPIX folder there but obtained the same results. I then checked the file's permissions & changed it so the whole world could read it, this time I was allowed to see it from DSL: a good lesson learned here. After issuing the command from DSL & saving its output & been working now from puppy I cannot find it nowhere: lesson forgotten? Probably.

I must redo everything again in order to insert that with my response below.


Edit:
dsl@box:~$ ifconfig eth0
ifconfig: eth0: error fetching interface information: Device not found
dsl@box:~$ ifconfig     
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback 
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:73 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:73 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:40954 (39.9 KiB)  TX bytes:40954 (39.9 KiB)

dsl@box:~$

[CNK]

Well that listing makes things look pretty bleak. Seems neither your wireless nor your wired ethernet is detected by DSL automatically. This is likely the result of your newer model laptop not being supported by the earlier Linux kernel used by DSL for its small size and better support of older hardware.

You can look at a listing of devices by opening the utility found in the DSL menu as "System>System Stats", then clicking on the "pci" tab. Some names should start with "Ethernet Controller", one of these should be your Wifi card. Search for the brand and model number of your wireless card, then look up the net for info on the Linux driver software and make sure there is a version that supports the 2.4.31 kernel. If the driver isn't in DSL, then you need to find the module/s (with the ".o" extension) compiled for the 2.4 kernel (preferably 2.4.31). With these in some accessible location for DSL, put an entry in /opt/bootlocal.sh to load the module/s with the "modprobe" command ("modprobe -f" if using a module compiled for a 2.4 kernel other then 2.4.31). If you can't find a module compiled for the 2.4 kernel (quite likely), you will need to compile the module yourself, this wiki page has a helpful guide to compiling under DSL (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/creating_a_compressed_extension_from_source.html). With te module compiled, you may load it with "modprobe".