My server -- a linux box running Mandrake 8 on an AMD K6-2 -- overheated. For a few weeks it had been mysteriously turning itself off, and I didn't know why.

Well, Monday morning I wake up and think "do I smell smoke?" I wander into the computer room and my server is smoking. I unplug that boy right quick, boy howdy. Turns out the fan on the power supply had died... I figured the power supply was flaking out and that was the reason for the shutdowns, but I didn't know it was the fan, I just figured parts were wearing out or something.

At any rate, the fan just so happens to be positioned right over the CPU in that box. So it died, and all of the heat from the power supply toasted my processor. >:( Sheesh. At any rate... I went out and plunked down $500 for a Duron 900, some ram, and a new case w/power supply, as well as an extra HD (since I'd been planning to increase my disk space anyway).

So I take all the good parts out of my bad computer, put 'em into the good computer, load Mandrake on the new computer and...

nothing happens.

The day without a server I'd been using my laptop, hooked up to the cable modem directly, for email and stuff. Shortly after midnight I rebooted the laptop and couldn't get an IP address. It was the only thing hooked up to the cable modem at the time.

Later, the server wouldn't get an IP address either. I'm getting a little pissed now.

At this time, the server is the only thing hooked up to the cable modem. I call up Roadrunner tech support and the guy says, a bit confused "we've got THREE Ip addresses running into that modem." So he resets that from there, clears that up, still doesn't work. I reboot, still doesn't work. So he says "I'm going to switch you over to software support... maybe it's a configuration thing."

I already know what's going to happen next, and I'd like to say that not only was I right, I came very close to predicting the actual words spoken.

"Hello, this is Roadrunner software support. Can I help you?"

Me: "yes, blah blah blah blah blah and that's my problem."

"Ok, go to my computer."

Me: "Uhhh, I'm running Linux."

"Ok, hold please."

(silence)

"Ok, what version of Linux are you using?"

Me: "Mandrake 8."

"Ok, hold please."

(silence)

"Sir, you have to call Linux. We don't have any information on how to support that yet."

Me: "..."

"Thank you for using Roadrunner."

To their credit, I was half-expecting for them to say "we don't support Linux at all. Linux is an unsupported system. As a matter of fact, using Linux is a direct violation of our terms of service. We'll send a guy over tomorrow morning to take back that cable modem, sir."

Just imagine what would have happened if I'd told them I was using eComStation.

At any rate, no luck of any kind until I took Addison's advice and actually reset the damn thing. Then it worked like a charm.

However, I still have to reconfigure everything. I've got the firewall set up, I've got NAT running, and I can't ping darklord. And the bastille-firewall.cfg script changes that I'd made the LAST time I went through this aren't working this time. Hmph.

So I now have internet access, for the most part, and darklord is about as secure as I'll ever manage to get it. But I still have no file or print sharing, which is sort of important. However, I can start doing Help Desks again, so that's good.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID computers...

I'm gonna use that. I am so going to use that. :)