new to networks!!!
 

Continuing on from this thread, I spoke to my brother (an IT professional and deadrat eccentric) who left me not knowing "whether I was punched, bored or countersunk" as far as finding out what I actually need to get my self sorted out.

I presume that I will need a router and a modem (got an alcatel speedtouch usb modem) or a combined router/modem device. A NIC card.

Will I need anything else apart the respective cableing?

My PC is apparently "network ready" but the lack of any evidence suggests that that is only something to do with the mainboard, so can I just unplug the internal modem and plug a network card in it's place?

There is also the question of firewalling, so I can leave my PC connected to the "always on" adsl facility. I understand that I would need my IP address to set this up, and have e-mailed my ISP for the respective information (that's assuming that I have asked the right question - I don't recall if it's a static or dynamic IP according to the account info, but it always seems to be the same when I check!)

To recap, all I want to do is to connect 1 PC to the adsl line to remove the need to use the speedtouch facility within mandrake 9.0 because whenever I do something and get it wrong I get the warning in the linked thread above and only seem to be able to reaccess by re-installing the whole OS which is a total bind! (I also understand that if I can avoid using an adsl connection through USB, there may be some "speed gain" benefit)


regards

John