I have RedHat 8 running on my x86 machine, and for a while I had it connected to a cable modem internet connection. It has since been disconnected. But ever since it was disconnected, lpd, enscript, and various other programs no longer work because they all report a "hostname bad" error or the like. Running "hostname localhost" and the like do not work-the programs still report the same error. I don't know what to change it to-does anyone know a fix for this?

Did you have a DHCP on your cable modem? I bet you DHCP set you localhost name. Check you network card configuration and set the host name manually. I hope that works.

Yes, DHCP did set my hostname. But how do I manually set it? (I don't claim to be a Linux expert, just a Linux user!) I thought using "hostname 'name'" or something like that would do it, but apparently not.

edit the file
/etc/hosts
and make sure that this line
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
is there.if in any case u have changed ur hostname then u should edit the file and then add a new line giving the ip address and hostname.
but be sure that line should be there in the file /etc/hosts.
u can also check with the file
/etc/sysconfig/network
hope this can solve the problem