I tried to read around on this, but I can't find my exact scenario, or it was over my head. If possible, I would like to get a really laymans description for the following:

I'm using Linux for the first time on a spare machine that was donated. I'm a current programming student taking my first Unix class and I thought this might complement my education. My Linux experience is under 24 hours at this point. I have WinXP on my main machine, and Mandrake 9.2 on this one. I have a DSL modem that allows a USB or Ethernet connection. I got LInux online using the NIC connection, but it doesn't seem to be able to connect when I try the USB cable. Both machines have a NIC card and I would like them to share the connection.

My questions are as follows:

(01) Can they share this connection without buying anything else?

(02) If yes, should I have the XP machine as the one connected to the modem and then connect the Linux machine to the XP machine? I have a second RJ45 "Patch Cable" Is that adequate?

(03) If also yes, could someone please give me "plain english" instructions on how that might be done, or direct me to instructions that weren't created by IT guys for IT guys.

I'm real excited about LInux and real eager to dive in. I've had a few snags, but not enough to chase me off, I really want this to work.

Thank you very much in advance,
Sean

Actually, I have a similar setup at home. My main machine runs XP Pro (simply because my partner uses it) and the machine I use is actually on an XP/Red Hat dual boot (or was, but that's a different story, Mandrake is downloading right now)

So, yes I can tell you exactly how to get this working (so long as you know how to change network settings in Mandrake as I've not used it yet) with XP sharing the internet connection.

Firstly you'll need a crossed ethernet cable, they're not expensive but if you really can't go out an buy one and the spare cable you've got is a straight through then you can find out how to rewire the cable by doing a search on google I imagine.

Don't use the networking wizard on XP, more often than not it fails to setup ICS correctly. Go to network connections and double click on your internet connection. Select Properties : Advanced and check the share internet connection box. Click OK.

Next double click on the network connection (the one that goes to your Linux box) and select properties. Double click on "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and check the "Use the following IP address"

Enter the following details:

IP Address: 192.168.0.1
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

You don't need to specify Default Gateway or DNS for this one.

XP will now be sharing the connection and all you have to do is tell the Linux box how to use it. The device should be eth0, and you need to allocate the following settings for it:

IP Address: 192.168.0.2
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.0.1
Primary DNS: 192.168.0.1

As I said, I don't know how to edit these settings under Mandrake as I've not used it yet, but AFAIK you should be able to do it from the Mandrake control centre.

Hope this helps

Wow, you really make that look easy. I think I'll just go get a cable. I don't want to rig this one. Besides I have had about 18 hours straight trying to "cozy up" to linux. I think I'll give it a break for the night, or should I say morning it's 5am now.

I cut and pasted your info and e-mailed it to my XP machine, I will give it a shot when I'm not so punchy, I mainly wanted to see if it was something that could be done without scary work on an OS I just met last night.

Worse comes to worse, both machines are right next to each other for the moment, I have been unhooking and rehooking them back and forth while I've been tinkering. I can only type at one keyboard at a time anyway.

I'm eager to go through your steps, I really appreciate your time.

Sean

Best of luck and it really is that easy. Mandrake can probably detect the internet settings for you but I thought if I told you how to do it manually then it would definitely work.

It won't take you long, but if you do run into problems the first thing to do it check you don't have a firewall causing trouble

Just remember to set up the XP firewall correctly!!

By default it leaves UPnP and port 445 open to the outside world.