None prompt

You are missing a hostname.

You can do

echo "whatever" > /etc/hostname

hostname -F /etc/hostname

(if you ever reboot, the hostname is automatically set for you)

Enjoy.

Bill Clinton

This works, until I reboot. How can I have it set at reboot?

it should work automatically at boot.

The command:

echo "hostname" > /etc/hostname

stores the hostname into the correct file. Which in turn is set at boot time by /etc/init.d/hostname

I get the odd feeling that your /etc/init.d/hostname script is not automatically be run at boot time. I have no idea how debian's brain-dead/non-conformant init scripts work, but the following should do it:

ln -s /etc/init.d/hostname.sh /etc/rcS.d/S40hostname.sh

that should make things work at boot time

Blii Clinton

@Bill Clinton:

I have no idea how debian's brain-dead/non-conformant init scripts work

Huh? They work just like any other SysV init system. One can argue that it's not the most intuitive system in the world, but it's hardly "non-comformant".