[Wylug-help] Setting up a home network

[Felix Ulrich-Oltean]

Hi

I have a desktop with Mandrake 8.2 and an old slowish laptop with
Debian Woody.  The mdk box is connected to the Internet with a modem
and I would like the deb laptop to see the desktop box and use it as a
gateway to the online world - where do I start?  I'm fairly clueless
so any starter docs would be great - I think what I'm trying to do is
simple, but I haven't got it working yet.

The Mandrake box has an ethernet card, as does the laptop and I've
been given a crossover network cable.
I tried using Mandrake's fancy "connection sharing" wizard, and it
installs dhcp-server and caching-nameserver, but my laptop doesn't see
anything.

Anyway - any starter tips or questions would be appreciated.

Thanks

Felix.