Local Network Hostname Resolution

[jdoe]

I am sorry if this has been asked and answered, but I couldn't find it. I have an installation of Knoppix 3.4 on my hard drive and I can not ping other hostnames. I can ping the static IP address for the same machine and it works fine but it can not resolve the hostname. The internet works fine, no problem there, just inside my local network. Everything in my network is static and there is no dhcp server. I know that I can type it into some file but I would prefer not to do that because if I could get it to sniff it out on its own I won't have to worry when some IP address changes. I know this can be done because I tried PClinuxOS and it was able to ping all of the hostnames without anything being hard coded in. I have had this same problem with previous installations of red hat and such but have never cared enough to get it fixed. I have tried making LISa start when the system starts but that didn't help.

Thank you,

Stephen

[user unknown]

That file that you don't want to use is /etc/hosts .
I don't have experience in sniffing out.

But would be interested in knowing how it works.
Of course you may ping all 255 adresses in your local subnet (if you don't use a 65.000 range). But how to ask the machines for their names? Don't they need a server running?
All the time?
Just to avoid writing 10-20 Adress-name-shortname triples and copy the file to the other machines? Well - it's your net...