98 cannot connect to Linux KDE [3]

We have WINDOWS 98 SE with XManager 1.3.9.

In our LAN there is one HP 712 with HP-UX 10.20 (10MBit) with CDE, one Red Hat 7.3 Intel (100MBit) and one MAC PPC with Yellow Dog Linux (10MBit). And one SGI R8000 with IRIX 6.5 (also 10MBit). The two Linux machines run KDE.

The Unixes all connect Windows with no problem (allthough the SGI only exports a part of her X, not all - but we believe this to be the fault of the IRIX configuration). Whenever you open the XBrowser and connect to them, you get a login. The two Linuxes, however, do not connect. We have broadcast turned on and even specified the IP-addresses. They are visible in the XBrowser, but when you try to connect, they tell you "XDMCP session failed. Try again?" If you retry long enough, eventually they will connect (sometimes after 3 tries, sometimes 25, sometimes never). What could be the reason for this? Please advise.

The problem might occur when:

1. Network connection is not stable. You can try to check packet losses between the connection.
2. A DNS configuration may have a problem in the Linux. You can try to add the PC's name in the /etc/hosts file of the Linux.

For further support, please send us C:Program FilesXmanager1.3.9Xmanager.log file.

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Technical Support

Thank You for your reply.

a. the network connection is stable. a ping results in "no packet losses".

b. there is no dns within our network - everything is done via IP. The Windows machine broadcasting has a static IP, the Linux machiones answering have a static IP. The /etc/hosts is empty.... could it be that KDE needs some kind of hosts-entry to connect properly - or could it be that LINUX needs a host-entry?? Or maybe he asks an external DNS for information, which of course results in nothing, since our internal machines are not listed??

The KDE converts the IP address of requesting PC into host name. So, it may take long to do the conversion when a matching entry is not found. For the KDE, both IP-to-name and name-to-IP conversions are required. The /etc/hosts table would be helpful when it is the case.