Hi, Since you are new to Linux, you might want to run system-config-network and select the NIC that is configured with DHCP, configure the hostname manually, and save
Excellent Advice
and reboot.
<rant>
Why oh Why do we have to suggest to people that rebooting will take care of everything.
Folks, just because some major OS must reboot for anything to take effect, does not mean that this is true of Unix in general, to include Linux.
Why I shutdown/reboot unix boxes: 1) I have a new kernel 2) The kernel crashed (ok, this, admitted doesn't happen) 3) Something locked the machine up (kernel, driver, etc) 4) Power/Hardware Failure 5) I take my laptop home 6) I have to run some other OS
Unix machines are generally *not* SINGLE USER MACHINES (there are exceptions, of course!).
IMO, rebooting in most other circumstances (changing network config, etc) means that you just don't know how to solve the problem without rebooting. Personally, I would rather find the "correct, intended" way to solve the problem, rather than resorting to reboots. In the "olden days", it could take HOURS for a system to reboot..... It wasn't something you did for fun...
In the case of a network configuration change, try the following as root (or sudo, if you prefer)
service network stop
service network start
or, if you don't like to type, service network restart
If you only want to recycle your ethernet hostname, ifdown eth0 ifup eth0
should work fine. (You may need to restart X, but that is for entirely different reasons).
If you get into the mentality of rebooting like other OS's, then you might as well reboot whenever you install/update something via apt/yum/rpm, or when you compile something, etc.
Perhaps a new menu item in Linux, similar to that in Wine/Crossover Office: Simulate Reboot
</rant>
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