Gentoo Live CD renaming PC (login prompt)

Q I am using Fedora; after trying out a Live CD of Gentoo, I notice that when in a terminal the name is now root@livecd. How can I change this back to my original name? Why did it happen?

A It sounds like you're using DHCP to configure your network (possibly built into your Internet router). I suspect that when you booted the live CD, it said "my name is livecd, give me an IP address" Then, your router remembered this hostname and reissued it the next time it got a request from the same MAC address. If so, the answer is to have your computer send its hostname with the DHCP request, by setting its hostname in the network config. Go into System > Administration > Network, select your interface and click on Edit. Type the hostname you want to use in the Hostname (optional) box.

Now Fedora will tell the DHCP server that it wants to use this hostname instead of leaving it up to the DHCP server to decide on a hostname. There may be an alternative method, depending on your router/DHCP server. Some allow you to specify the hostname or IP address given out to specific MAC addresses (a MAC address is the hardware identification for an individual network interface). If your router supports this, you can set the hostname in here - it should show you a list of connected MAC addresses, or you can find it by running ifconfig on the computer: the MAC address is on the first line of an interface's output, labelled HWaddr and looks like 00:50:56:C0:00:08. This method means that you will always have the same hostname or IP address whichever OS you boot on this computer, which can be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your preferences.

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