Thin client configuration problems

[DB Clinton]

Hi,
I'm a Linux newbie trying to use my desktop Edubuntu as a thin-client server
for the other computers in my house. Because I was a bit nervous with
partitioning my hard drive (there's WinXP running there too), I loaded the
desktop version of Edubuntu (7.1.0)  through Wubi (whose alpha version
didn't support the server edition). Configuration has been, shall we say, a
challenge.
Despite booting the clients to a rom-o-matic CD or (in the case of the
computer whose BIOS supports booting to a network device) to the NIC, none
has even got to the poing of being successfully assigned an IP address.
I suppose it's possible that there's something wrong with the rom-o-matic CD
I burned (or the other system's BIOS), but the fact that there are still
basic unresolved issues with the NICs on the server suggests I should
address those first:
I think there's something wrong with my NIC configuration. At present, both
eth0 (attached to my DSL modem) and eth1 (attached to my wired LAN) are
controlled by DHCP - but I've tried all kinds of other combinations to no
effect.
I'm trying to use Firestarter as my router but Firestarter always fails on
start, claiming that the eth1 connection isn't ready. During Firestarter's
setup wizard, the DHCP settings section is grayed-out.
In addition, I haven't been able to link to the LAN computers (while they're
running Windows) through Samba (the appropriate Windows network name does
appear in smb.conf).
Regarding my Internet connection: on boot, Ubuntu loads what appears to be
the correct ip info for my DSL provider on ppp0, but nevertheless provides
only crippled access (the network connection manager shows a very limited
number of packets being up and down loaded and, practically, I can't
actually load anything in a browser). Running poff in terminal doesn't work
as I get a "no pppd process for provider 'ppp0'" message. pon dsl-provider
does activate a working Internet session on ppp1 using, for all intents and
purposes, the same ip info (except that my ISP provides a new dynamic ip
address).
I really appreciate any help.
David Clinton
Here are some conf files:
=============
dhcpd.conf
# DHCP configuration generated by Firestarter
ddns-update-style interim;
ignore client-updates;

subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
    option routers 192.168.1.111;
    option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
    option domain-name-servers 216.254.141.13, 209.90.160.220;
    option ip-forwarding off;
    range dynamic-bootp 192.168.0.100 192.168.0.254;
    default-lease-time 21600;
    max-lease-time 43200;
}
=============
#
# Default LTSP dhcpd.conf config file.
#

authoritative;

subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
    range 192.168.0.20 192.168.0.250;
    option domain-name "example.com";
    option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1;
    option broadcast-address 192.168.0.255;
    option routers 192.168.0.1;
#    next-server 192.168.0.254;
#    get-lease-hostnames true;
    option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
    option root-path "/opt/ltsp/i386";
    if substring( option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9 ) = "PXEClient" {
        filename "/ltsp/i386/pxelinux.0";
    } else {
        filename "/ltsp/i386/nbi.img";
    }
}
========================
etc/network/interfaces:

auto lo eth1 eth0
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto dsl-provider
iface dsl-provider inet ppp
pre-up /sbin/ifconfig eth1 up # line maintained by pppoeconf
provider dsl-provider
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edubuntu-users/attachments/20071226/748f8f8a/attachment.htm