Last week I got ADSL installed at home, so I had some fun configuring the PCs!

Firstly I have to admit that I installed initially under windows 2000 to see if the connection is up and running. It took me about 5 mins...

Then I tried to install it on Mandrake 8.2. I had done my reading before hand, but it didn't seem to work...

Apparently there are more than one how-tos out there on ADSL, and none of them was briliant (or should I say I'm still on a learning mode: don't ask me to recompile the kernel yet; give me two weeks...). After a few unsuccessfull installations of mandrake 8.2 (and guess what I still haven't made myself an autoinstall disk, so I had to sellect the packages EVERY time!) I remmembered a tip that I got from Dave at a recent meeting of the London Linux user group (www.lonix.org.uk). Dave said "If everything fails try Mandrake 8.1, and DO NOT set up the ethernet card during the setup; only the ethernet connection". That saved me.

Here is how get ADSL working in UK  (assume BT ADSL, with Alcatel USB modem - it should work with the other providers as long as you are given an alcatel USB modem)

• Before you even install mandrake 8.1, you need a file called alcaudsl.sys. Amasingly you can find it in the windows system folder after you have installed the driver. Then rename the file to mgmt.o and keep it on a floppy (it is about 500k). Alternatively you can download it from the official alcatel site. For some reason, the downloaded file is smaller (around 100k) and didn't work with me...

• Then install Mandrake 8.1, select the packages you wish - but please sellect PortSentry. It seems to work very well as a firewall; you don't want to "b r00ted" the first day with broadband, do you????

• When you reach the stage where you configure the networking ( I assume you have a network card for your local network and the USB modem) DO NOT use the AUTO-DETECT option. Simply go for ADSL-->ALCATEL USB and fill in the account details. When you finish you will get a message saying that you need to download a file. It is the file you have in your disk. Don't worry about it for now. Finish the installation and reboot - AGAIN - WITHOUT CONFIGURING THE NETWORK CARD. If you do configure the network card, mandrake gets confused - it tries to use eth0 (your network card) to contact your adsl provider, and not the ppp0, ie the alcatel modem. But do say that you want to connect automatically at boot. As soon as you finish reboot.

• In the first boot the ADSL will not work. You have to login as root and copy the file that you have in the disk to the /usr/share/speedtouch/  directory. Then simply rebootn again. You should be up and running!

• In order to check your connection simply type net_monitor on a terminal. This will give you a nice little graphical interface that will allow you to admire the speed of your downloads!... From the same interface you can also stop the ADSL connection (why for, though).

1. Run the Internet Connection Sharing Wizard found in Configuration--> other--> LinuxConf.  It is straight forward (in other words, just say yes to every question!)
2. Reboot and check the ip address of your linux box - just the network card (ie run  "ifconfig eth0" in a terminal- it's the "inet addr" value). It should be 192.168.0.1. Then On every windows PC you have to make two changes
3. First set their network card to automatically take an IP address (ie use DHCP - your linux box will be doing this from now on)
4. Second find the Gateway tab and add the IP address of your eth0 card (ie 192.168.0.1 in this example). This is important, otherwise the winPC will not have a clue how to connect to the net.
5. And by the way - I hope you won't make the same stupid mistake that I almost made: make sure that the username-password combination that you use in the winPC is a valid user in the linux box, otherwise linux will not be very happy and won't share the connection!