"Could Not Lookup IP Address" and Other Startup Mysteries

I'm trying to put two RHL9 computers on a local network with an XP Pro machine. I've
narrowed down one of the Linux machine's problems to:
1. During bootup it stalls for several minutes at "Starting Send Mail" and "Starting
Mail-Client".

Once I get to a terminal window, I find that I can ping away to my heart's content to
the other machines.

I disconnected the computer from the network, and still get:

1. During bootup it stalls for several minutes at "Starting Send Mail" and "Starting
Mail-Client".

I then go into hosts and remove the IP address line for the computer, and upon bootup
get:

1. Blazes right through Starting Send Mail and its buddy S-C.
2. After logging on, I get a message that says, "Could Not Lookup IP Address. This
will prevent GNOME... a fix may be to add Meteor_PC to hosts."

I click by this and able to execute commands as I would expect.

I have no idea what's going on. I'm pretty sure I do not have GNOME on my system.


--
Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet
(Formerly Homo habilis, erectus, heidelbergensis and now sapiens)

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On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 19:25:12 GMT, W. Watson <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I'm trying to put two RHL9 computers on a local network with an XP Pro machine. I've
> narrowed down one of the Linux machine's problems to:
> 1. During bootup it stalls for several minutes at "Starting Send Mail" and "Starting
> Mail-Client".

Usually that is if sendmail cannot find an IP on your box for your
hostname. Since you say it works faster without your hostname in
/etc/hosts, I wonder what IP you assign it to. It is best not tamper with
the 127.0.0.1 line. If you do not have a static nic IP to assign your
hostname to, you can use some other loopback IP like 127.0.0.2.

> Once I get to a terminal window, I find that I can ping away to my heart's content to
> the other machines.
>
> I disconnected the computer from the network, and still get:
>
> 1. During bootup it stalls for several minutes at "Starting Send Mail" and "Starting
> Mail-Client".
>
> I then go into hosts and remove the IP address line for the computer, and upon bootup
> get:
>
> 1. Blazes right through Starting Send Mail and its buddy S-C.
> 2. After logging on, I get a message that says, "Could Not Lookup IP Address. This
> will prevent GNOME... a fix may be to add Meteor_PC to hosts."
>
> I click by this and able to execute commands as I would expect.
>
> I have no idea what's going on. I'm pretty sure I do not have GNOME on my system.

If you use X (any GUI) it typically uses local networking (whether Gnome,
or KDE, or other). So if you run any GUI, your box needs to be able to
find an IP for itself.