[PLUG] Getting Comcast to work

[Holger Stephan]

Was hooking up a Linux box to Comcast with cable modem discussed lately?
In any case...

If you were talked into providing your mother-in-law with her first
computer and cable broadband Internet access and you decide to abuse her
as a Linux user guinea pig, you of course want things to go fast and
smooth. 

You start by scanning the Internet to see how to go about this business
and you'll find mostly confusing information and probably no up-to-date
help specific to Comcast. It seems smart to take your Windows equipped
notebook with you on your first visit...just in case. Now despite claims
you read, her Linux box will not work with enabled DHCP and you'll grab
your notebook and Comcast's installation CD. It really helps if your
notebook is not a Thinkpad 770X because otherwise the Comcast program
will tell you what you may have long suspected: the CPU only has 72 MHz,
not the 300 IBM claims and you paid for. Which is way below the minimum
requirement and understandably, the installation will have to give up at
this point. 

Should the time you allocated for this visit be exhausted and you come
again in an attempt to get it to work with only the Linux box, you'll
waste your evening again. Don't let it fool you that you can ping some
outside hosts and DNS seems to work halfway too. It will just let you
stay longer that day (and there is still no food in the fridge).

If you don't like dual boot and you happen to have another harddisk with
a Windows installation, bring it with you on your next visit. Find an
innocent explanation why you open up the computer again and for the
cables chaos that hangs out of the case; your mother-in-law may become a
bit worried otherwise. Since you know that Windows installation can do
that blue screen trick and require a lengthy repair you will also have
the Windows installation CD with you. 

Otherwise you will have to continue on your next visit. 

Oh - the OS repair may also require the product key, even when this is a
MSDN CD (because MS reconsidered their options and asks for one now).
There are ones with 20, 21 and 25, and possibly other numbers of,
characters. If you don't have the right one with you you will need to
call around and have friends dig a bit. You'll block your mother-in-laws
phone line for a while though. 

Or you go home and bring it with you on your next visit. By now, you
will have to do something about your mother-in-laws growing
techno-fright.

At some point you will get Windows to run on her computer and with luck
the Comcast installation will like the CPU speed too. It is then that
you have to go through a shit load of service activation, modem
recognition and registration steps. With the obligatory 7 reboots. 

But now, finally, your Windows installation will find the Internet, and
after you yanked the second hard disk, so will Linux.

Don't try to show your mother-in-law how to use it just now though. Wait
until you and she are relaxed again. 

It really deserves another visit. 

Holger