DNS: nslookup works, ping does not

I am really struggling about this matter. I have set up a (almost)
working DNS Server on a fresh installed SuSE 9.2 distribution. I have a
zone linux.local, have configured it for reverse lookup
(2.162.198.in-addr.arpa) and hostname lookup via nslookup works (forward
and reverse). But when I try to use the name with ping, then ping fails
(this is also true for a web-browser), while traceroute works...

The pinged hosts are up and running, the config-files resolv.conf,
host.conf, nsswitch.conf are set to look in /etc/hosts and then query
the dns server.

BTW DNS forwarding (for external names) works fine with ping and the web
browser.

I have no clue what I can do to solve this problem, so I would apreciate
your help!