dhcp error?

[ratsalad]

this may be a stupid question, but every time i log on, i get a message from gnome saying it cant find my ip and sez i might try adding
my host name to /etc/hosts

what format would that take,
right now it sez:

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

and isnt my host name supposed to be something like atl.25.232.231, like you get on irc, which it was when i first instaled mandrake, but when i reinstalled the past few times, it gives me the name i assigned it under windows, no numbers related to my ip and location, just a word...

does this make sense to anydody...i dont really get the whole dhcp thing and i think its why i have been having trouble posting to newsgroups.....

[sans-hubris]

127.0.0.1 is a standard IP given to all machines. It's just a reference back to that particular machine (usually used for testing purposes or special software proxies for things like ad blocking software.) That's why this address is sometimes called the loopback address because it loops back to the machine it came from.

As far as your Gnome error, it's prolly nothing major, much less fatal. Can you give it verbatim?

[ 11 August 2001: Message edited by: Muad Dib --formerly ndogg ]