1. the crossover cable MUST be connected directly from NIC to NIC
2. when you connect to your ISP (when you dial out) you might receive a DHCP address (which is not 192.168.x.x).
*solution* from Linux- give your NIC a static IP address using the ifconfig command (192.168.0.1)
from Windows- give it a static IP of 192.168.0.2 FOR THE NIC THAT IS CONNECTED TO THE CROSSOVER
3. you don't need DNS addresses or gateway address for this configuration
4. Understand that if you give these machines these addresses, you will not be able to connect to the internet AT ALL
5. I don't think you actually connected to your ISP when you launched Netscape (i think it was just the dial-tone that fooled ya')
6. try pinging YOUR OWN IP. (i.e. if your at your Linux box, ping 192.168.0.1) if that times out, you have a hardware problem most likely.
7. when both machines can ping eachother, you might be able to telnet to Linux: if not, check out RedHat's website and find configuring telnet RedHat 7.2
8. good luck and post again