Dear Praise & List, I see so many SuSE'ers struggling with the "How to connect my SuSE sys to my ISP" question that I must share my experiances. I AM NOT endorsing any BRAND or Mfgr! I have no experiance with INTERNAL modems so I will only refer to systems that have EXTERNAL modems and/or ADSL/Cable service that use Ethernet (NIC) connections. There is a class of device called "Broadband Routers" ( you will also see "DSL Router or Cable Modem Router names used). I bought one from SMC for about $80; I know that price makes it a signifigant purchase but the service that it provides me is worth much, much more than any other single COM device I have ever had. Here is my story: I have had a series of Dial-Up ISPs and I now have ADSL from my phone company (SBC, a big big provider here in the US). I have used Modems from 2400 baud up to a 3com 56kb (43K really) and I have had a couple of ADSL setups, both of which delivered via Ethernet. The ADSL is PPPOE which means that it is NOT truely 'always on', it needs the user to 'login' like a dialup modem connection using PPP internet protocol. SBC supplied Windows 98 s/w to do the logon, and I was happy till I wanted to 'share' my internet connection with another machine (SuSE Linux). I did the sharing by putting a SECOND NIC (Ethernet) in the Win98 Pc and a 'sharing app' from a shareware vendor. But I contemplated a third PC so a buddy suggested a "Broadband Router" (bless him!). The SMC Barracade router has made life SO SO much simpler here. Here is why. To start you unplug the Ethernet cable FROM the ADSL box from the NIC in the PC and plug it into the router, then you put a rj-45 (Ethernet) jumper from the router to that PC and to each PC you also want hooked up. The broadband router is set up to be a DHCP Host (don't let that scare you; it means Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, but SuSE and most other linuxs are all setup to use DHCP, just tell it). It is also setup up to handle the PPPOE and logon and password issues. This is part of the magic! So I reconfigured W98 to use DHCP to ask the router for an IP Address each time it boots and the router does this flawlessly; now the PC is set up so that it never has to do PPPOE or any of that logon/password stuff; the router does it after being setup once. The router setup is via a WEB PAGE! The router has a 'micro-web server' so that once your PC has been connected to it you open a browser and surf to the IP address the router book tells you to; once the browser 'connects' to the router you enter the default p/w and you have complete control of the router. It has pages and links that you use to tell it what your PPPOE user name and password are, and once saved, the router will work hard at always keeping you logged on to your ADSL. Mine will try to logon after an outage forever, and it never gets tired. Now for more magic: the router also has a serial port to connect to a dialup modem! If you tell it to it will connect to your ISP via dialup if your ADSL is down. It also has a printer port that connects a printer as a network printer for everyone connected. So what we have is a subsystem that takes over the administration of your broadband and dialup modems configuration and administration. It also handles all your logon and password chores. It automagically (via DHCP) tells any PC plugged into it what it's IP addr is and acts like a 'static IP' connection. It also provides access to all connected PC to a 'network' printer. You never have to fuss with AT&**** strings or logon/ password issues again. I never saw a modem that was SIMPLE to setup, but I've never seen a NIC that was HARD to setup. The SMC is called a Barracade because it is also a simple to setup FIREWALL. Most other brands are too. Some brands are wireless so those don't even have the cable-ing fuss. Some offer other services that I won't go into, but the fire wall is quite good; after I set up the routers firewall, the s/w firewall (ZoneAlarm) on my W98 PC never showed anything getting thru. Sorry for the long winded story, but each time I see folks here wrestling with modem/ADSL/CableModem setup issues I smile, think how lucky I was to have a friend who told me how to eliminate those issues, and promise myself to "Share the Secret" so to speak; well I have now. If anyone wants to know more they should just email me; I'll try to help. Perhaps someone here will speak to those things that are different in other countries because of TELCO or ISP differences. Best of luck, there is a simpler way! ................. PeterB On Friday 12 July 2002 18:46, Praise wrote:

My ISP will provide an Ericsson HM 220 dp (ethernet). Anybody knows if there is something this modem? I mean.. could it give me problems with suse linux? I assume that there should not be problems as it is ethernet. Am I wrong?

Praise

On 13 Jul 2002, at 1:46, Praise wrote:

My ISP will provide an Ericsson HM 220 dp (ethernet). Anybody knows if there is something this modem? I mean.. could it give me problems with suse linux? I assume that there should not be problems as it is ethernet. Am I wrong?

I use the same here, and no problems using it with Linux (SuSE 8.0)

Praise

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Med venlig hilsen / Best regards Erik Jakobsen - erik@urbakken.dk Urbakken 8 Oland 9460 Brovst.