One of my students wrote in with this question:

"I have DSL from SWBell at home. It is connected to a DSL router which I use as a firewall. Can any of you offer information on how to get the DSL and router to work in Red Hat 7.2? The modem (Efficient Networks 5260 ADSL)is compatible with linux according to the mfr."

My instructions follow. Note that my instructions are assuming the following:

• You've got Red Hat Linux 7.2 installed and working.
• You've got an ethernet card in your Linux machine & Red Hat detected it correctly when you were installing.
• Your router is set up to act as a DHCP server, dynamically assigning IP addresses and other networking information to the computers on your network.
• Your DSL is functioning correctly.

If the above are in fact true, then let's proceed with the instructions.

1. Go to http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=linuxconf & download the RPM for your distribution (mine is Red Hat 7.2 for i386). Go to http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=gnome-linuxconf & download the RPM for your distribution (mine is Red Hat 7.2 for i386).

2. As root, install Linuxconf & Gnome-Linuxconf on the command line as follows: rpm -Uhv *Linuxconf*.rpm

3. As root, open Linuxconf on the command line: /sbin/linuxconf

• A side note: you may get a four-line error message when you try to open Linuxconf which starts with "Error message from remadmin :Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server". If this happens, hit Ctrl+C, then type xhost + (don't forget the "+"!) & hit Enter. Then try /sbin/linuxconf again. Unfortunately, you'll need to type xhost + every time you restart the computer if you want to run Linuxconf; on the plus side, you're using Linux, so how often are you going to need to restart?
• Another side note: the first time you run Linuxconf, a large window is going to open with some introductory info. On every machine I've ever used, this window goes past the bottom of your screen and is therefore impossible to read effectively. Just hit Enter & it should close. You'll never see it again ... it just runs the very first time you start Linuxconf.

4. Now that Linuxconf is open, go to the Config tab. Click on the triangle next to Networking to expand it. Click on the triangle next to Client tasks to expand it. Click on Host name and IP network devices.

5. Click on the Adaptor 1 tab (I'm assuming you only have one ethernet card). Check the box next to Enabled. For Config mode, choose DHCP. Click on the Accept button. Close Linuxconf.

6. You've told your networking system on your Linux machine to grab its IP and other networking info from your router, which is acting as a DHCP server on your network. But your computer now needs to actually grab that IP address. Therefore, to complete the process, type the following as root: /etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart. You should see a series of commands with OK next to each one. If all the OKs come by, you should now be able to get online. Open a Web browser and go to town!