I thought this was really weird. So the other day, I finally decide to wipe my win98se box and throw fedora core 2 on it. All goes well and I install and set it with a static ip of 192.168.0.211 behind two routers. Boot it up and everything works fine, I can connect to the internet and surf and all that. My main router is a wireless d-link, which has one computer on it another cable connected to a router (more of a switch or hub) in my room. The one in my room is using the uplink port so that it just acts like a switch, and the computers behind it actually all operate through the first router (the wireless one). The first router is the dhcp server and all that. So after that I had 3 computers in my room behind the second router, two nix boxes using a static ip and both fine for connecting to the internet, and one winXP pro box that gets its ip with dhcp and also is fine connecting to the internet. The computer connected directly to the first router uses dhcp and is fine with its connection. All the boxes are able to see each other and everything like that.

I was planning on making the freshly installed fedora box a file/backup server, but the problem was it was kind of loud so I wanted it out of my room. When I moved it into the other room and connected it to the first router, it still being configured for using a static ip, nothing internet related worked. I think it may have been able to connect to itself on localhost, but I'm not even sure about that. So, I move it all back behind the second router where it was originally and everything worked fine. I decide since the other computer at the first router is using dhcp I will reinstall fedora and tell it to get an IP automatically with dhcp (I know you can probably easily do that without reinstalling, but I don't mind reinstalling so I just did :P). I reinstall and try and boot up and same thing, can't ping anything or go anywhere from the box over the network. I even tried putting it in the dmz on the router, and still nothing. So right now it's back in my room with a static ip again doing fine.

My question is, why wasn't it able to ping anything at all or do anything internet/intranet related? The other computer on the first router (don't know if I mentioned it but it's XP pro) used the internet fine. Everything had the same subnet mask cause like I said it's all basically operating through the first router, with the second one acting like a switch or whatever. The second one doesn't assign ip's or anything like that. All the computers are on 192.168.0.* with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Why wouldn't the fedora box connect from the first router?

Thanks in advance for any answers. Don't know how willing I will be to try anything drastic, I was just curious. I don't mind it staying in my room for now.