Laptop does not always recognise server

[John]

<snip>
> By giving us the information we've asked for...
>   

Sorry, Derek, I'd missed your post and have just looked it up on the 
archive.

I have a SuSE 10.0 server on my LAN which is the server for both my 
laptops. By name, I mean FQDN i.e. "Server.DMJ-Consultancy.local". This 
works from U6.06 but not from U8.04 on the same LAN although both 
machines are getting their IP addresses from the DHCP server also 
running on the same server. This server also provides my DNS for the 
.local domain and I have not configured the hosts file on either machine 
to achieve the above results.

You asked for /etc/hosts and hostname -f; the information for each 
laptop follows:

 From the U8.04 machine:
john at Train1:~$ hostname -f
Train1

/etc/hosts:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 Train1

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts




 From the U6.06 machine:
john at Slave:~$ hostname -f
Slave

/etc/hosts:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 Slave

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts


As you can see, the two sets of information are identical in all but 
computer name. I have also checked the dhcp and dns configuration files 
on the server; they make no reference to either machine.

What do you advise as the next step, please?

TIA

John