[ILUG] why can't my pc access other computers through its network card?

[raoul duke]

hello, 

my setup at home is, i've got a pc with debian on it with 2 ethernet cards 
in it. eth0 is connected to a router with dhcp and the eth1 is connected to 
my laptop with a crossover cable. for some reason i can't access the 
internet with my pc, but when i connect my laptop directly to the router, 
my laptop can access the internet no problems. 

when my laptop and pc are connected together and i try to ping my pc from 
my laptop i get this: 
gary [~] ping 192.168.0.1 
PING 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1): 56 data bytes 
ping: sendto: Host is down 
ping: wrote 192.168.0.1 64 chars, ret=-1 
ping: sendto: Host is down 
ping: wrote 192.168.0.1 64 chars, ret=-1 
ping: sendto: Host is down 
ping: wrote 192.168.0.1 64 chars, ret=-1 
^C 
--- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics --- 
28 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss 

when i try to ping iol's dhcp server from my pc i get this: 
root[~] ping 194.125.2.240 
PING 194.125.2.240 (194.125.2.240): 56 data bytes 
ping: sendto: Operation not permitted 
ping: wrote 194.125.2.240 64 chars, ret=1 
ping: sendto: Operation not permitted 
ping: wrote 194.125.2.240 64 chars, ret=1 

--- 194.125.2.240 ping statistics --- 
2 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss 
what's up with this? afaik i don't have any firewall rules except for the 
ones that came with ipmasq. 

btw, here's my /etc/network/interfaces 

auto lo 

iface lo inet loopback 

auth eth0 

iface eth0 inet dhcp 

auto eth1 

iface eth1 inet static 
address 192.168.0.1 
netmask 255.255.255.0 

any help, pointers, suggestions would be greatly appreciated, cheers!