Ethernet Help Needed

[Mantrid]

I am running a small (5 computer)home network. Right now, all of the computers are running Windows ME, but I plan on dual booting Debian with Windows on my system. The problem is that with Windows, all of the networking aspects are taken care of pretty much automatically, so I have never had to play with the settings before. According to the installation guide for Debian, I will need to know some things about the network if I want to use it in linux, like various addresses, my host name, the domain name, etc. I know how to find the IP addresses for each machine, but am not sure about the broadcast address or default gateway. Also, which system is used for DNS, and what would my domain name be. I'm assuming that the hostname would be the same as the computer name in windows.

You probably need to know that:

1) This is a peer to peer ethernet setup, with all computers connected through a hub.

2) I access the internet through the network, with a cable modem that is hooked up to a seperate, windows only machine.

3) I don't have a static IP for the cable, and the network uses DHCP (at least that's what I think it means when I choose to let windows assign the IP addresses for each machine).

4) I will be installing Debian 2.2 from the CD set, and would like to have the network and internet access available as soon as possable in the install process.

Anyway, I'm sorry if these questions seem ignorant or stupid, but I just lack alot of knowledge in this area. Any help would be appreciated.

[pbharris]

all linux ditros i know can use DHCP just fine.

you will need to know what kind os card is in the machine, my modules.conf file has the line:
alias eth0 de4x5
i have a card which uses the dec chipset.
debian will ask you about your network settings, so it will probably be pretty automatiic.

[atl2ptown]

i found debians install to be a little difficult. Mandrake on the other hand was very simple. It probed for my ethernet card and i only said that i accessed the internet through a LAN. If you decide to use drake simply state that you use dhcp. It will do the rest.
By the way, in windows type winipcfg to see the ip address of the machine and the default gateway it accesses.

[Mantrid]

Well, I do know that I need to use the Tulip driver module for my ethernet card, so there's no problem there.

As for Mandrake, thats cool, but I would rather just learn to do these things for myself. Otherwise, I'd just stick with Microsoft products.

[ndogg]

Debian isn't too difficult to set up as a DHCP server. Just make sure the module (in this case and mine, the tulip module) is compiled either seperately (/lib/modules/kernel-version-number/net/tulip.o) or into the module itself. Then make sure it's loaded at startup (check if /etc/modules has 'tulip' in it).

Now, apt-get install dhcp dhcp-client. apt-get should install the dhcp server with the settings you have on your system.

------------------
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