versus
RJ-21 phone (right; wrong)
This quick little HowTo contains the basics of what one needs in order to plug a computer into a network port at Morehouse and have the right thing (connectivity) happen. For more thorough documentation, check out http://support.morehouse.edu/.
Pretty much any computer purchased new within the last 10 years will do. It must either have or be able to accept an Ethernet interface. Windows has been able to work with this since Windows 95. Macintosh has worked fine since System 7.5 or so. All the unix variants (Linux, BSD) work fine.
Most any ethernet card will do, as long as it has the standard 10-meg or 100-meg twisted pair RJ-45 connector on it. The RJ-45 connector is a blocky rectangle, sort of like a phone plug, only bigger. We like the cards from Intel, Netgear, and Linksys.
Any ethernet cord should work. Those look like phone cords, only bigger and with 8 wires in them. (Phone cords usually have 4, only 2 of which usually are used.) Do not try to use a phone cord! Lots of people do this, but it doesn't work!
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| RJ-45 ethernet (left; correct) versus RJ-21 phone (right; wrong) |
RJ-45 plug on an ethernet card |
To use the Morehouse network, no matter where you plug in, set your computer to do as much of its network configuration as possible automatically (via DHCP). The computer should grab information about its own address, its routers/gateways, its DNS name servers, and anything else it might want to know by DHCP.
In most cases, the computer will do this unless you tell it not to, so if you have a new computer, just plug it in and see what happens. It should work.
Under Windows, wander around the Start Menu until you find Control Panels. Get into the Network Control Panel. Pick a network card or LAN connection (depending on your Windows version). Do Properties. Tell it you want everything to happen automatically.
On a Mac, get the Network settings and tell it you want the ethernet to be configured by DHCP.
Nothing in this document comments on permission to hook a computer or other device to the network; that information lives on the main support site. In general, computers that aren't infected with something are OK, and everything else isn't.