[vox-tech] at my wit's end

[Norm Matloff]

I just bought a new machine, an HP with an Athlon 64-bit CPU.  I
tried to install Fedora Core 5, then Mandriva and even Knoppix.
The problem is my Ethernet connection.

I have an unusual situation at home, since we use Powerline (i.e.
connection through the household electric grid) as our LAN, and that
appears to be the problem.  If I connect this new machine directly to
the router through an Ethernet cable, I connect to the Internet just
fine.  But if I connect via Powerline (Ethernet cable connects to a
device which is plugged into any electric socket), I get nothing.

I've tried various ways to get the network started manually, and they
all fail.  Under Core 5, I tried things like

$ service network start

and get an error message something like "eth0: no IPv6 router present."
I just tried running dhclient by hand under Mandriva, and got a message
"eth0:  unknown hardware address type 24."

Please note that I've been using Powerline for several years without any
problems.  My old machine, running Fedora Core 3, which I'd been using
until this week, connected through it just fine.  I just tried
connecting my laptop, running Fedora Core 4, through Powerline, and it
worked fine too.  And again, note that if I connect the new machine
directly to the router, it is fine.

Any ideas?

Norm Matloff