Debian or Mepis - office LAN

[gunncyclopedia]

Hi folks,

I have a problem with the office network at my working place. we have a small office of 6 PCs, three are running simplyMepis Linux while the others are under Windows. A Dlink DSL-G604T router is used to connect to the internet via PPPoE, also the PCs are connected directly to the router.

However we have problems with the internet sharing now, we just cannot plug windows and Linux PCs together into the router, otherwise the router will freeze up and all the PCs will lose internet access.

We suspect that it might be the problem of the Mepis configuration. The file sharing works satisfactorily under SMB4K. However, we are not able to find the other hosts in the network using 'ping' command on a particular Linux PC.

We have consulted an IT solutions company and they suggest us to convert all the PCs into Debian system. I am using Debian at my Pc at home and i found it fantastic. However, is it necessary to convert all office PCs to debian? there is no other solutions for the problem?

I am afraid if the Debian system is installed when we still do not have internet for Linux, we will be in trouble.

could you give me any help on this issue?

[Grommet - Space Cadet]

Definately sounds like you have configs wrong....

Id take a punt and say that if your not able to ping that the netmasks/ip addressing is wrong....

if your linux boxes are not on the same ip range as your windows boxes you wont be able to ping them......

if in fact your ip addresses are correct then you may have walked into a MAC Addressing issue....alot of cards dont have mac addresses set in them....

either way running up 1 box as debian shouldnt take you long and you will be able to test pinging during the netinstall......if you can ping windows PCs your alread 1 step ahead....if you cant ping them your in the same boat and need to work out why you cant see other boxen