Hi,

Up to now I've been running Linux on a broadband connection and have no experience using Linux on dialup.

I have a home networking situation where there's an existing WinXP box that's on dialup (they're out in the country with no broadband).

There's a second "older" box currently running Windows ME, that I plan to convert to Linux (haven't decided what distro to use yet...my experience so far is mainly with Mandrake, Xandros and Mepis.

I need to share the dialup internet connection on the WinXP box with the Linux box. Yes I know that if both users are on the dialup connection its going to be slow...but just have to live with it.

I'd prefer to have the dialup connection on the Linux box and then share it with the WinXP box...but unfortunately that's a "no go". Nor can I fiddle with the WinXP box and set it up as "dual boot"...so that connecting to the internet is done on the Linux "side" of things.

I can "play" with the old box...but don't have permission to "fiddle" very much with the "shiny new" WinXP box.

I have spare network cards, network cables and 4-port hubs kicking around...so hardware is not a problem.

I've split dialup connections between Windows 9X boxes before...way back when...but its been a long time!

Any suggestions on the best approach would be much appreciated.

Install network cards and set up Internet Connection Sharing in XP.

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_ics/

Yes but if I enable ICS on a Windows box will I be able to access it from a Linux box? I know this works fine if I'm accessing ICS from another Windows box.

Is it simply a matter of setting up the Linux box to point to the Windows box IP as a proxy server?

ICS is just a NAT (network address translation) router daemon with DHCP server and caching nameserver. From a Linux box you'd connect to it as you would to a hardware router - set the interface for DHCP and everything should work automatically.

No proxy server involved - just NAT routing.