modem and shutdown

[Jesse]

Hi,

I found a question similar to mine posed on the yellow dog lists, but I
didn't find any answers posted (maybe they went off list).  I also tried the
newbie list, but haven't heard anything and it's been a day or so.

So, here's a few things I ran into now that I installed 2.3 (release
2.4.19-4a) on my imac rev e. :-)

1.  I have my modem set up, and it connects to my isp (i can see how much
time it's been connected for and so on).  However, when I try to check email
or use Konquerer, I get the error message "unknown host."  Thus, "unknown
host www.google.com", and "unknown host mail.earthlink.net."  Any thoughts
on how to correct it?  This must be pretty simple, but I'm not sure what to
check.

2.  I've tried to shutdown in a couple of ways none of them very successful:
a) graphic shutdown button in KDE.
result:  tried to shutdown, sent kill signal, etc.  there was a noise that
sounded like a spinning thing coming to rest (it sounded like a good noise).
however, it hung up before shutting off the actual power.  the last thing it
did was, "flushing ide devices hda hdb."
b) comman "halt -p"
result:  same as for step (a) above.
c) command "/sbin/shutdown -h"
result:  invalid command.  Yes, i was root, and checked the spelling.  :-?
d) command "shutdown -h now"
result: invalid command.  i was root, and checked the spelling. :-?
Any ideas? 


3. I also seem to have changed the usual "localhost" setting to "earthlink."
as in when the screen should read jesse@localhost, it reads jesse@earthlink,
and root@earthlink.  I've tried a few things (eg. followed directions on
"man hostname") to change the name back to localhost, but I haven't been
able to change it, yet, by following those instructions.  So, um, any newbie
proof advice on how to do that?

4)  this doesn't matter so much, as long as things work, but my screen
resolution is pretty faded because I wound up using the "failsafe" option in
xconfigurator since that was the only thing that prevented me from getting
that "respawning too fast" error.  Are there any suggestions to improve the
screen resolution? Should I have better screen resolution?

TIA for any ideas you have on those. :-)

All Best,
Jesse