Setting up Freesco

I chose Freesco over the other floppy disk Linux distributions because of its ease of use.

I will not go into a lengthy dissertation on how to install and setup the system. I would likely confuse a delightfully simple task and much on this subject has been written by more articulate, knowledgeable folk.

All the binaries, FAQ's and How -To's are available at www.freesco.org. This site has links to several well-written and informative articles on setting up Freesco. If interested in building a Box, I urge you to read the documentation.

The Freesco support forum is a good knowledge base when configuring or troubleshooting your Freesco box

www.freesco.org

Note: The Freesco site is going through some changes. The current link will probably change in the near future.

Download sites:

Freesco 027

Asia: freesco.jason-wong.org/

Europe: www.fromscratch.org.uk/Mirrored/

Freesco 033

sourceforge.net

Setting up Freesco 027

Download the Freesco disk image file. This image file was created for a formatted 1.44MB 3 1/2" floppy. The image file is written to the floppy with the DOS program rawrite. Linux aficionados can also use the dd command. (I'm sure they already knew that)

This disk contains the Linux OS and all the files to run the router - firewall.

My system was setup with DHCP client for the external (cable side) network. This Ethernet card will be assigned an IP address from the ISP.

The internal network (10base2 LAN) side was setup as a DHCP server. This second Ethernet card was assigned the IP address 192.168.0.254.

IP addresses 192.168.0.1 thru 192.168.0.4 were reserved for the DHCP server. If you have more than 4 computers to network set the upper address to a higher number. For example 192.168.0.20 for a total of 20 networked computers.

Note that the block of IP addresses, 192.168.0.0 thru 192.168.255.255 are commonly asigned for private networks. This was set by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)

I set both windows machines as DHCP clients. The Win2K machine was amicable to the arrangement and accepted 192.168.0.1 as the assigned IP. The Win98 SE machine did not approve of this 'mélange a tois'. I had to invoke the riot act and bring in the help of winipcfg command. This small, useful applet can be run from a DOS window. It allows you to reject the present TCP/IP settings and request a new set from the DHCP server. It would also be a good idea to disable any routers on the other networked computers.

Understandably, computer networks and Internet protocols can be very confusing. If you need further information on this topic you may want to check out these sites.

HomeNetHelp.com

World of Windows Networking