Written By:
Date Posted: August 20, 2001

At this point I would like to mention that it is a good thing to already have your hardware set up and the addresses on your NICs set. The ISA NICs that I have used (3com 3c509 and Linksys EtherLAN) cards have an executable that comes with the drivers to set the memory address and the IRQ. BE SURE TO WRITE THESE DOWN. You will need them. You will also need to have the information to hook up your Internet connection. While this program does support sharing a dialup connection I will not be covering that aspect. This will be for xDSL or cable connections only. You will need the computer name that was assigned by your provider and that is it if you are using DHCP. If you have a static address you will also need the IP, default gateway and your primary and secondary DNS servers.

Once you have all of the above information together put the floppy into the floppy drive and boot your machine up. If all goes well you will see the freesco header and below it you will see the prompt:

Boot:

At this prompt you will need to type 'setup' and hit enter to begin the configuration process.

Wait for the kernel to load and when it comes to the login prompt type in "root". By default the password is root (you will be able to change that later).

This is the first configuration screen. Since we are setting it up for the first time we want to choose #2.

Next we want to select "e" to start the setup of an Ethernet router.

The first step is to enter the name for your computer given to you by your ISP, known as your host name.

Next you will need to provide a domain name for your router. The domain name isn't too important at this point so just use your imagination.

Next you can autodetect any modems attached to your system. This is for if you want to be able to dial into your network from outside. You can experiment and set this up later on your own.

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