If I use /etc/init.d/xdm to give me a nice graphical login, I find that networking screws up on me. Here's what happens: 1. Start up a nice GUI login program using xdm, either as a automatic startup program after using rc-update, or by manually running /etc/init.d/xdm from console mode. This can be either xdm, kdm, or gdm. 2. Log in as any user, or as root into a GUI. This can be either fluxbox, KDE, or Gnome. 3. Do whatever you want to do, then log out and get back to xdm/kdm/gdm. 4. Log in as any user again. 5. Watch networking die as soon as you try to use any program that uses your network connection (email, browsers, ftp, etc.). I've narrowed this down to a combination of using /etc/init.d/xdm and the arp cache. If I start looking at /proc/net/arp after logging in the second time from *dm, this is what it initially looks like: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- $ cat /proc/net/arp IP address HW type Flags HW address Mask Device 130.219.233.1 0x1 0x2 00:00:0C:07:AC:E9 * eth0 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- And this is what it turns into as soon as I try to do any networking: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- $ cat /proc/net/arp IP address HW type Flags HW address Mask Device 130.219.233.1 0x1 0x0 00:00:0C:07:AC:E9 * eth0 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Notice that the entry under "Flags" changed. This does not happen if I start X from the console (i.e., using startx), so it appears to be something particular to xdm. It also does not seem to matter which desktop environment I use, or which display manager program I use. Here's emerge info, although I have had this problem for a while: # emerge info Portage 2.0.51_rc10 (gcc34-x86-2004.2, gcc-3.4.2, glibc-2.3.4.20041006-r0, 2.6.9-gentoo i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.9-gentoo i686 Pentium III (Coppermine) Gentoo Base System version 1.5.3 Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r5 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r1 Binutils: sys-devel/binutils-2.15.92.0.2-r1 Headers: sys-kernel/linux26-headers-2.6.8.1-r1 Libtools: sys-devel/libtool-1.5.2-r5 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-march=pentium3 -O2 -mno-align-stringops -minline-all-stringops -fno-crossjumping -fmove-all-movables -mno-push-args -fno-delayed-branch -fno-thread-jumps -fno-defer-pop -Wall -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control"CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium3 -O2 -mno-align-stringops -minline-all-stringops -fno-crossjumping -fmove-all-movables -mno-push-args -fno-delayed-branch -fno-thread-jumps -fno-defer-pop -Wall -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache distlocks sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://gentoo.mirrors.pair.com/" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.namerica.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X acpi acpi4linux activefilter alsa avi berkdb bindist bitmap-fonts bmp bonobo cdr cjk crypt cups curl dga directfb dvb dvd eds encode esd evo f77 fam foomaticdb gcj gdbm gif gimpprint gnome gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 gtkhtml hal howl imap imlib imlib2 ithreads java javamail jpeg ldap libg++ libwww live mad md5sum mikmod mmx mmx2 motif mozcalendar mozilla moznocompose moznoirc mozsvg mp3 mpeg music ncurses nls nntp nomultilib nptl objc oggvorbis opengl pam pcmcia pda pdflib perl pic png pnp ppds python quicktime rage128 readline samba sdl slang slp sndfile spell sse ssl svg svga tcpd threads tiff truetype unicode usb x86 xml2 xmms xprint xv zlib" I'm using xorg and gentoo-dev-sources, but this problem can be replicated with either mm-sources and plain vanilla development-sources.
Not sure what happened, but my system stopped having this behavior.
