Which broadband is the easier to set up?

[Belle1479]

We're moving in just a few days, and our choice will be SBC DSL or cable. Currently I'm using SuSE 9.1 but I had purchased the Mandrake 10.1 Powerpack and couldn't connect to the internet through dial up for some reason. So I really need to know which would be easier to set up.

My PC has a built in ethernet port on it's nForce4 motherboard. I've been unable to get the onboard sound to work through Suse but it was fine through Mandrake. Does anyone know if support for nForce4 is patchy? If so am I likely to have any trouble connecting through broadband?

 

[Qiranworms]

Cable is almost always DHCP nowadays...that should be easiest, as Horndude said. DSL is often PPPoE, which can involve a few more steps, but check with both companies to make sure.

As far as I know, neither is impossible to get working, and if you spend a bit of time at the beginning getting a more difficult one setup, everything should be fine either way. If you really can't, try getting a cheap ethernet router capable of connecting to the cable/dsl modem, set that up, and connect the computer via DHCP to that, but that would be, in general, an unecessary workaround.

 

[Belle1479]

Thank you guys so much for your help. That's why I like this forum........you're all so nice and helpful.

 

[Belle1479]

Well, as of yesterday I found out that we'll have to get the cable connection. It doesn't mention on their website of it being compatible with Linux, but I'm assuming it shouldn't be too difficult for it to be set up. I already have the 2.6 series of kernels on the Suse here, but think the Nforce4 is still too new for it. Oh well, I'll try to reinstall Mandrake once we get signed up for the cable service. Everything seemed to be working properly on that apart from it not connecting to the internet, and KDE wouldn't work, but think that could be fixed with the updates. As long as I can get it to connect, I'll be alright I think. If not, I won't know how to fix the problem and will say that $90 went down the drain for the OS. I am not very technical when it comes to Linux yet.

 

[Sevoma]

Any cable service should work with linux, it is the matter of having the right drivers for your ethernet card. Linux is very good at supporting that.

 

[jakec]

Be Forwarned though, Bigpond doesn't support Linux

Jake

 

[Simon]

Be Forwarned though, Bigpond doesn't support Linux

Jake

They have Bigpond in the US?

 

[furtivefelon]

from my experience (i tried both directly connecting to a cable line and through a router).. if you have the right driver for your ethernet, then it's just a matter of connect, reboot (if you want the easy way out), or just go to kde control center and enable the connection

PPPoE is more diffcult because it involves setting up a username and password (at least that's what my service provider requires).. so the computer can't automatically set it up for you, you have to set it up manually..