[TriLUG] Latecomer to the RoadRunner party

[Jeremy Portzer]

On Tue, 2004-11-30 at 20:52, Mark Wilson wrote:
> Hi gang,
> As soon as my last school loan payment has cleared the bank, I'm going to 
> join the 21st century and get Road Runner.  I have an aged machine (2+ 
> yrs.) which still mostly serves my needs.  
> My 2-part question is on its way out soon, I promise. 
> The box has Tyan  PCI motherboard with a Celeron 400 processor, and has 
> two USB ports.  I don't have an Ethernet card; what do you recommend I 
> purchase before I call the RoadRunner folks?  I've visited the Hardware 
> HOWTO, but I don't  know *anything* about NICs, so I can't tell which ones 
> listed will fit the available slot. 

Any PCI Ethernet card should do.  Linux supports all of the major
chipsets.  Someone on the list will probably give you one for free (or
beer) if you ask nicely, or just get the el-cheapo one at Intrex on the
TriLUG discount.  10BaseT is fine because you won't have speeds higher
than that over the cable modem, but any new card would be 10/100.

> (Forgive the ignorance please--chronic newbie here). The RR site says the 
> Network hardware  requirements are "Ethernet card with RJ45 connector, or 
> Open slot and  free compatible IRQ, or Open USB port".  Does the latter 
> part mean I can get away with just using the USB port without buying a 
> NIC? Or that I can get a NIC with a USB port instead of the RJ45 connector?

Well, you can connect the USB port directly to the cable modem, which
works fine with the Windows drivers.  I don't know if this works in
Linux or not.  I believe the comment about "Open slot and  free
compatible IRQ" may mean that TWC will provide you with an Ethernet card
if you need, but I'd recommend you provide your own and test it
beforehand just because of the Linux setup issues.

If you go with Ethernet (which is what everyone on this list likely
does), you will of course need an Ethernet cable.  However, it's likely
that your cable modem install kit will come with one, or you can pick up
one of those from your TriLUG hardware benefactor or Intrex.

> Anybody out there have experience with RR's 'cooperation' with the Linux 
> community (and by cooperation I mean at least having the good graces to 
> get out of the way if they don't explicitly support it)

Yes, absolutely.  There have probably been hundreds of posts on this
list about it, you could spend all day reading the archives.  :-)

> Do I have a hard road ahead of me?

Nope!  And if you have problems feel free to post them here.  Just set
up your Linux machine to automatically obtain an IP address through
DHCP, and you'll be good to go.

Do understand how to configure your firewall however.  Connecting
directly to an always-on high-speed Internet connection can be dangerous
to your computer's health!

Jeremy

P.S.  Note that RoadRunner is not the only Internet Service Provider on
TWC's high-speed Internet network.  There are several other resellers,
some of which are cheaper than RoadRunner.  Look into Earthlink for
example.  I had Earthlink and was perfectly satisfied.

-- 
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| Jeremy Portzer       jeremyp at pobox.com       trilug.org/~jeremy     |
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