Help a newcomer to Linux please?

Well I want to get started with linux specially for my Internet gateway to
share my internet connection to my windows clients for HOME based LAN.

I have p4 2 gig pc with 1 80 gig hdd,1 20 gig hdd not used,1 6 gig hdd not
used,1 gig RAM,56k winmodem,adsl modem,soundcard built on motherboard VIA
p4x400,cd rw drive asus 5224a.(Main machine)
currently running windows 2000 pro.

so Is there a way to install linux on this machine and access windows 2000
as well, and if yes which linux I should get eg redhat and other etc.

How do I setup linux as internet sharing server...eg what ports to forward
etc to clients...

How do I succesfully install linux and share my internet connection to my
HOME base LAN clients mainly for gaming and surfing the net....

Please help me decide how to configure linux as ICS server, which flavour to
get for linux, how to port forward etc as part of ICS and gaming.

thanks a lot for reading and your help will be greatly appreciated!

Sincerely

Acid_Rain <(E-Mail Removed)> shaped electrons to say:
> Well I want to get started with linux specially for my Internet gateway to
> share my internet connection to my windows clients for HOME based LAN.
>
> I have p4 2 gig pc with 1 80 gig hdd,1 20 gig hdd not used,1 6 gig hdd not
> used,1 gig RAM,56k winmodem,adsl modem,soundcard built on motherboard VIA
> p4x400,cd rw drive asus 5224a.(Main machine)
> currently running windows 2000 pro.
>
> so Is there a way to install linux on this machine and access windows 2000
> as well, and if yes which linux I should get eg redhat and other etc.
>
> How do I setup linux as internet sharing server...eg what ports to forward
> etc to clients...
>
> How do I succesfully install linux and share my internet connection to my
> HOME base LAN clients mainly for gaming and surfing the net....
>
> Please help me decide how to configure linux as ICS server, which flavour to
> get for linux, how to port forward etc as part of ICS and gaming.
>
> thanks a lot for reading and your help will be greatly appreciated!
>
> Sincerely

You really *are* a newbie (it seems)

You can't run both operating systems at the same time in any simple manner.
Your best bet is to get a cheap (or older) machine to setup as a router, or
just buy a DSL router. Be much easier than trying to do what you propose.

"Acid_Rain" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:3fa73332$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Well I want to get started with linux specially for my Internet gateway to
> share my internet connection to my windows clients for HOME based LAN.
>
> I have p4 2 gig pc with 1 80 gig hdd,1 20 gig hdd not used,1 6 gig hdd not
> used,1 gig RAM,56k winmodem,adsl modem,soundcard built on motherboard VIA
> p4x400,cd rw drive asus 5224a.(Main machine)
> currently running windows 2000 pro.

Sounds nice

> so Is there a way to install linux on this machine and access windows 2000
> as well, and if yes which linux I should get eg redhat and other etc.

You can access your 2k discs but you can't run both os'es at the same time!

You can mount the 2k drive into linux - but writing to NTFS from Linux is a
bit dodgy and can corrupt the file system.

You can access linux partitions from winders using Explore2fs

> How do I setup linux as internet sharing server...eg what ports to forward
> etc to clients...

You need to set up MASQUERADE. What ports do you need to forward?

> How do I succesfully install linux and share my internet connection to my
> HOME base LAN clients mainly for gaming and surfing the net....

You need to set up MASQUERADE. i.e iptables.

> Please help me decide how to configure linux as ICS server, which flavour
to
> get for linux, how to port forward etc as part of ICS and gaming.

You need to set up MASQUERADE. i.e iptables.

> thanks a lot for reading and your help will be greatly appreciated!
>
> Sincerely
>
You would prolley do well to look at something like shorewall or ipcop.
Stick it on an old machine leave your 2k server intact

Google on the following:

samba
shorewall
ipcop
Explore2fs

Luke

>
> so Is there a way to install linux on this machine and access windows 2000
> as well, and if yes which linux I should get eg redhat and other etc.
>

vmware used to make a product that would allow you to run both
operating systems concurrently, and they shared all of the resources.
It has been a while since I used it, but I used the Mandrake
distribution, but I would expect it to work with others.

Louis

On 6 Nov 2003 12:28:32 -0800, Louis <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>> so Is there a way to install linux on this machine and access windows 2000
>> as well, and if yes which linux I should get eg redhat and other etc.
>>
>
> vmware used to make a product that would allow you to run both
> operating systems concurrently, and they shared all of the resources.
> It has been a while since I used it, but I used the Mandrake
> distribution, but I would expect it to work with others.
>

VMware still does. The guest operating system runs in a virtualized PC
on the host OS.

It works extremely well, but costs $300.

TCS <The-Central-(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
>
> VMware still does. The guest operating system runs in a virtualized PC
> on the host OS.
>
> It works extremely well, but costs $300.

You can download an evaluation copy, which will let you try it out for
a month. I highly recommend doing this; I found that VMWare worked
perfectly for one of my computers (a no-name Athlon system), but
crashed just after booting Windows on my Sony Vaio 505 laptop (yes, I
did try all the revised drivers suggested on VMWare's web page, and I
tried both W98 and W2K). Unfortunately, the laptop was the machine I
needed to run Windows on occasionally...
--
Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D. Phone -- (505) 646-1605
Department of Computer Science FAX -- (505) 646-1002
New Mexico State University http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer
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