Changing host name

[Michael Thompson]

When I change the hostname on my fedora 12 box, from the installation
default of localhost.localdomain, the network dies until it is reset back.

I'm changing the hostname by the Network control applet in Gnome, and
have checked that /etc/sysconfig/network and it lists the following

NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=feddesk

ifconfig shows

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0C:29:D1:7F:B3
          inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:fed1:7fb3/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:101 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:13048 (12.7 KiB)  TX bytes:258 (258.0 b)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:18 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:18 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:1320 (1.2 KiB)  TX bytes:1320 (1.2 KiB)

I cant understand why the act of changing the hostname would kill the
network, has anyone got any ideas?

-- 
Michael Thompson
http://maverickapollo.wordpress.com