Folks, My Debian box is working nearly 100%. Seems the mistake I made and it just didn't occur to me is that I had specified a gateway in /etc/network/interfaces for both the internal and external interfaces. This just won't do. ALl I had to do was give the internal interface its ip, netmask, network address, and broadcast. Once that was done it was working just fine. Now once I get the firewall straightend out, I think I'll be on my way. Thanks Kenny for talking the logic through with me. SOmetimes that is what it takes is just taling thorugh the steps and something pops into your mind and then the problem starts to resolve itself.
