> fine and dandy. However, when I boot without the internet connected (ie
> unplugged) it takes forever on the boot to start the sendmail and samba
> services, and any jobs other than simple listing or changing directories
> take FOREVER - windows will open 5-10 minutes after I ask for them...
This is a common problem and is addressed in the Red Hat Support FAQ:
http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/rhl/RedHat-FAQ/RedHat-FAQ-10.html#ss10.2
Here's what they had to say:
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Question:
I have installed Linux, and it seems to initially start booting. However it
gets down to something called sendmail and then the machine seems to hang.
What is happening and what should I do?
Versions Affected by Problem:
All
Probable Answer:
If after the install the machine seems to hang when it reaches certain
processes like sendmail, apache, or SMB there is probably a network problem.
The most common cause is that Linux can not look up the name of the machine
you have called the box (if you set up networking to have a machine name). The
machine is currently paused waiting for the network timeout of DNS lookups,
and will eventually bring up the login prompt. Login in as root and check the
usual culprits for a problem.
If you are directly on a network with a DNS server, check the file
/etc/resolv.conf has the correct values for your machines DNS server. Check
with your systems administrator that the values are correct.
If you are using Linux on a network without a DNS server (or this box is going
to be the DNS server :)), then you will need to edit the /etc/hosts file to
have the hostname and IP address so that the lookups will occur correctly. The
format of the /etc/hosts file is like the following example:
127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain
192.168.200.1 mymachine mymachine.mynetwork.net
Where the example machine is called mymachine.
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good luck!
don