Grant Parnell said: > On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, John Gibbons wrote: > >> Greetings, >> >> I am a newcomer to Linux and cannot speak the technical language at all. >> After somehow successfully installing Mandrake 9.1 alongside XP I am at >> a loss to connect to optusnet via the cable modem that works OK with XP. >> Have read a couple of howtos in books for "beginners" written by well >> meaning but communication challenged experts and have read some advice >> on the internet but cannot understand it either. They may as well be >> written in Esperanto or Swahili as far as a complete beginner is >> concerned. >> >> Would some kind Linux Wizard who still remembers basic English please >> come to my rescue? > > Well I could probably help if I used Mandrake. From what I know of optus > cable there's almost no setup involved. > > All you need to do is find the network setup tool for Mandrake (Drakconf?) > and setup an 'ethernet' interface and have it automatically setup using > something called DHCP and activating it, that's it! My problem is giving > you the specific terms used and things to click on in the Mandrake config > tool. > > If you're physically using a different computer, turn the cable modem off > first because it locks onto the particular network card.
I understand the problem with the instructions, being slightly above bottom level myself. The instruction to physically turn off the modem is critical when changing from one computer or network card to another - pull out the power cord. I would go to http://www.webmin.com and download and install the latest version of this program, it is quite well documented. The go to the Network - Network Configuration - Network Interface, Choose your network card in the bottom panel about INterfaces started at boot time (probably shows as eth0), choose DHCP from the setup, blank out any exisiting Netmask or IP address and then choose Save and Apply. Sometimes that doesn't reconfigure the NIC to DHCP and get a new address, so you might have to restart networking (at the command line - /etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart should do it, I think Mandrake has the same layout as RedHat that I use or if in Windows frame of mind - reboot the sucker!) SHould do it. -- Simon Bryan IT Manager OLMC Parramatta -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
