internet connection problem!

[lilo]

Hi, I have internet connection and used to connect with my PC. Now I want to connect my laptop to that line. How can I connect to internet with my laptop?(my operating system for my laptop is Linux Debian) any idea is much appreciated.
Thanks,

[devils casper]

hi !
wat type of net connection u hav.. wireless or cable... ??

[lilo]

I have cable connection.

[KenJackson]

If it's a serial cable to a modem, you connect the DB9 connector to your laptop's DB9 connector.
If it's an ethernet cable, you connect the RJ45 (big phone jack) to the RJ45 jack on your laptop.
If it's a USB cable to a cable modem, you connect the USB connector to the USB jack on your laptop.

If it's ethernet (RJ45) and you want to connect BOTH the PC and laptop at the same time with only one IP address, you'll need a router. Netgear makes some popular routers available everywhere.

I know this probably isn't very much help, but you have given so little information that no one can know what information you need.

[lilo]

Thanks for your guidence. You are right, my question is not clear enough that is because I am very new in network world. I mean whether I need to configure any file to have access to the internet or simply click on web browser after physical connection!

[KenJackson]

Connect it and try it. If both the network and the laptop are configured for DHCP (a common configuration these days), it should just work. If not, here are some things to try.

Look for a green LED beside the RJ45 jack on both the laptop and whatever the other end plugs into. Even if the connection doesn't seem to work, you should have both green LEDs lit to indicate the hardware connection is good.

Run this command to see what your network device is: /sbin/ifconfig
It's probably eth0 and the output will look something like this:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:XX:XX:XX:XX
inet addr:192.168.1.1 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: XXXX::XXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:591859 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
...

Look at this file: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
It probably looks like this:

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
METRIC=10

If it doesn't, there is probably an easy way to configure it; maybe from the menu:
System -> Configuration -> Configure Your Computer -> Network & Internet -> Reconfigure a network interface

Or you could just edit the file as root and do this:
service network restart