im in aohell
 

ok guys. i have tried this before several times but always end up giving up because i am too much of a noob. i am on aol broadband at the moment. before you tell me to change, my wife won't let me. i'm under the thumb i know. trying to get this to work on linux is possible, as i have read much about how its possible. how i am supposed to do this remains a mystery however. i think i may have the drivers installed for my modem using eciadsl, but now i have no idea how to connect. apparantly, on windows xp i can connect to aol without the gui which i have done. a website tells me that you can use this same configuration on linux but how? here is a picture of my connection settings on windows - http://hairyfish.bravehost.com/testno.bmp. someone PLEASE tell me how to whack these settings into linux and get online. This has become like a 3 year project so far.

Buy a wireless router and forget all the drivers, modem and different connections.

With a wireless router you still have usually 4 ethernet ports. Just plug a RJ45 standard network cable between the router and the PC and you are in business, no driver and no hassele.

You can use IE in WIndows or Firefox, Opera, Gozilla or any web browser in Linux to talk to the router (by an IP address supplied with the router), configure it and let at least 16 computers using Internet at the same time, without any PC switched on to host the internet connection. The Router acts as the common gateway to the Internet and also provides you with a ready-made network.

Boot up a Live CD and you will find the Internet is waiting for you without doing anything in most cases.

Guess what, I run same same broardband from aol as you.

You can now change the "hell" to "paradise" in the title now.

without me having to go out and buy anything, using just my speedtouch 100 usb modem, is there a way to do it?

I am sure you can.

You have to read the manual provided by the modem, load the driver and so on. You have to do it with every operating system too. Thus you may have a job in hand to use it for Linux but haven't got a driver for it.

With a router you are connected to a network and there is no drivers for it. As long as you have a commonly available network card the connection, normally by DHCP, is automatic with Windows, Linix, BSD and Solaris.

I second the router suggestion. It solves a lot of problems, and gives you some expansion options. Also maybe has some security benefits.

i'll tell you a secret. i do have a wireless router in my loft. it's been there for about a year now unused. after my snap responce to the first reply (sorry), i got it out and configured it in windows. you see, it seems to me that the configuration installed the server settings (config settings, username, password etc) into the router itself. i didnt know that this is how a router works and now i feel very silly. i'm writing this on fedora core 6, on my aol broadband connection, after 3 years of first trying, thanks to saikee. Much karma to you and thank you very much. seriously. you have made my day/week/year

You see I did suggest