Dear friends:
After a week of trials and tribulations and several reinstalls of LM 8.0, I
finally figured out how LM 8.0's Internet Sharing works. I am not a hundred
per cent certain of this. But I think my conclusions are probably correct.
Right after first installing LM 8.0, I successfully installed Internet
Sharing using both Linuxconf and Mandrake Control Center, Networking. I think
I was just lucky. It lasted a good week and a half. During this period I was
spent much of my time testing the "halt" patch for Pierre Fortin and as a
result did an awful lot of shutdowns and reboots. Yet, my Internet
Connection and Internet Sharing (i.e. sharing my ADSL line with a second
computer) worked flawlessly.
I then did something stupid (I don't recall what) or perhaps something just
went wrong with LM 8.0 and I lost my Internet Connection, etc. I was never
able to get it back. So, I reinstalled my system several times, each time
experimenting with different things. Meanwhile, I had read comments by some
of Mandrake's experts and users to the effect that LM 8.0 was still unstable
in parts and that this was also true of the new Mandrake Control Center and
especially of Internet Sharing.
One thing seems obvious: it's best to use either Linuxconf (if you know how
to do that) or the Mandrake Control Center or the command line or Webmin to
establish Internet Sharing but it's better NOT to mix these methods. Stick
with one.
Now, I discovered during my install that LM 8.0 often misconfigures devices
or suggests the wrong course of action. For example, it wrongly configured my
floppy in /etc/fstab as /dev/zip instead of /dev/fd0. It also picked the
wrong Okidata printer from their list, something that LM 7.2 had no problem
doing with precision.
Now, back to Networking. if you are configuring a single ADSL or Cable card
(eth0, there should be no problem allowing LM 8.0 to configure it for you
during install. However, if you are setting up a LAN with Internet Sharing, I
would advise against it. LM 8.0 insisted on configuring my LAN during install
instead of DSL. That screwed up Internet Sharing after install. On the other
hand, if I selected DSL, it did correctly find both of my NIC cards and
correctly configured them, using pppoe but then, after install, when I went
into KDE and tried to connect, I found that it had not been configured after
all. So, it was back to the Mandrake Control Center, Networking, Connection.
So, it may well be better NOT to configure your NIC cards at all (if you have
more than one and are planning on setting up a LAN with Internet Sharing).
Here is what I would recommend, based on my limited experience:
Skip Network configuration entirely during install. Then, after install, in
KDE or Gnome go Mandrake Control Center, Networking, Connection. Now click on
Configure at the bottom right. Now configure your ADSL, both eth0 and eth1,
then press OK. By the way, I would advise using two entirely different NIC
cards for eth0 and eth1, i.e. each one should use a different kernel module.
In my case, eth0 is a 3com (3c59x module) card and eth1 is syslink (tulip
module) card. Now, click on Connect at the upper part of the box. This will
connect you to the Internet using ADSL or Cable. Now, you can reboot if you
wish in order to see both cards recognized during boot-up. They should both
receive green check marks next to them (eth0 -- green check mark; eth1 --
green check mark).
Now, go back into Mandrake Control Center, Networking and select Internet
Sharing. Do NOT select LAN. I don't know why. But instead of configuring your
connection, then your LAN and then your Internet Sharing (which always
resulted in some sort of configuration conflict in Internet Sharing, it's
best, from my experience, to proceed directly from Configure DSL (or Cable)
Internet Connection to Internet Sharing, skipping the LAN configuration part
entirely.
When I did this, i.e. when I click on Internet Sharing after configuring my
eth0 and eth1 (see above), everything worked perfectly. No conflicts this
time. Instead, Internet Sharing already knew about and recognized both of my
NIC cards and advised me that it would now configure my SECOND (eth1) card,
i.e. "tulip" and told me that it would use this card as my Network Adaptor to
my LAN. It then proceeded to create the LAN. It advised me to insert CD 1 and
installed a number of files necessary for Internet Sharing.
That was it. And the rest is history. I rebooted Computer B and instantly had
ADSL in both computers. And the same speed, too: 1250/s downstream and 315/s
upstream. Steady and reliable from Mindspring/Covad (Highly recommended. In
fact, superlative ADSL service -- though I should state for the record that
we own shares in Covad).
I certainly hope that LM 8.1 will improve upon LM 8.0 in many areas,
especially in the matter of Internet Sharing. I am sure it will. It's a joy
to have automatic Internet Sharing in LM8.0. But, it can be hell trying to
deal with what is either a buggy configuration tool or else unnecessarily
difficult or not sufficiently documented, lacking step-by-step instructions.
The above is my exprience. Being only an ordinary user, I am not really sure
how accurate it is. I hope some of the masters on our list will correctly me
on this but, please, only AFTER you have FULLY familiarized yourselves with
this new tool or any of the graphical tools for Internet Sharing.
For this reason, I will not send this message to the Newbie list. I am not
sure that I really understand this well enough even as a user and I am not
entirely confident about my instructions.
Hope somebody who really knows this stuff takes my instructions and corrects
or fine-tunes them and in PLAIN ENGLISH, offering step-by-step instructions
on how to precisely use the Mandrake Control Center, Networking or Linuxconf
or Webmin to establish Internet Sharing. It would be a great service to all
of us.
Hope I have helped in some way.
Thanks for listening.
Benjamin
--
Sher's Russian Web
http://www.websher.net
Benjamin and Anna Sher
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
