Thank you so so much mikasi you have been such a tremendous help. I cannot thank you enough.
The Zone Alarm issue I will have a look into. I am sure you are correct about Trusted Zones etc and I will look into this.
Unfortunately, the one thing about AOL that everyone will tell you is that you cannot make a separate broadband network connection for it as you outlined above. They have a special sytsem and software put in place where you have to run AOL software to get the net connection.
See below :

http://i19.tinypic.com/7xkh7bs.jpg

AOL uses a direct connection with its special inhouse software + drivers ( AOL ATW/ WAN Miniport). You cannot use broadband without it. Hence, setting up a PPoE Broadband network connection will not work. So I'm afraid ICS will have to be done manually each time I log on to the net.
I will try to configure the ZA anyway and will let you the results. At least we have the bulk of the problem solved !!!
Thanks a million mikasi you have been a fantastic help.

Best Regards,
Uncle

Good morning mikasi,
As I promised I tried to reconfigure Zone Alarm so I could receive the net connection.
I've put the linux box in my "trusted zone" and can now ping to XP with the firewall enabled but still cannot ping to the outside world or have a net connection on the linux box when the firewall is enabled.
Here are the settings I have tried using in Zone Alarm. Note the only thing I have tried to alter are the Linux box settings. I have left the adapters well alone.

http://i9.tinypic.com/8dzja7t.jpg

http://i2.tinypic.com/82x8imp.jpg

Hope this can be of help !

Regards,

Uncle.

update: I have just read through the Zone Alarm literature and ICS is not functional with the free version.

Hi

ICS is not in anyway function of (pure) firewall. Firewall does not know (or at least should not be concerned with) which interface has ICS enabled on it.

Solution to your firewall problems is simple:
- remove "linuix" entry from firewall settings
- put "MAC Bridge Miniport" to trusted zone because it actually represents your local network (LAN)

Actually you should put your complete network 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 to trusted zone. Numbers in RED represent your network address, while number in BLUE represents your client address in local network (with mask 255.255.255.0). Last zero in IP address is not a typo!

P.S.
I will also look around a little bit for AOL broadband interface problem solution anyway.

Hi Mikasi,
Thanks again. I'm afraid I read your post a bit too late and have already installed Zone Alarm Pro. I've altered some settings and the net connection from Linux seems to be working well.
I'm going to have to go through the ICS configuring each time I log onto the net though. I do not have a static IP which is unfortunate.
I will be truly amazed if you can find the solution to the AOL broadband interface. It has foxed many people for many years !

Regards,
Uncle.

Article Sharing Your AOL DSL Broadband Connection (it's a little bit old) describes different types of AOL services.
I am not really familiar with AOL services so could you please give me more detail information about yours:
- is it DSL or something else?
- PPPoE?
- can you give me a link to AOL page describing your type of service?
- any detail information from documentation you got from AOL?


AOL service type you need is the one that can be configured on any commercially available home router (Linksys, Asus, D-Link, LevelOne, etc.)
If it can be configured on a router then it can also be configured on Windows XP following the steps I have provided in previous post.
If yo don't have that type of service then you should probably consider service type change. What are the possibilities for that?