[Ham-Computers] networking suggestions needed

[Frank]

For the better part of five years now I have been using a 
cable modem running it into one nic housed in a Linux LEAF 
firewall/router.  The second nic in the Linux box is 
connected to several computers with thinet ethernet.  An old 
serially connected network using rg58 coax.  Why?  Because 
it was cheap and is not effected by my ham activities 
because all the coms are over coax cable, shielded from RF.

A couple of years ago my son-in-law gave me his old ibook 
complete with airport wifi card.  I got a linksys WRT54G 
version 2 broadband router and added it to the network to 
provide wifi internet capability to the ibook.  Works great.

Recently I got rid of the cable modem in favor of the ATT 
U-verse setup providing wifi internet AND cable TV.

For some reason (probably because I wanted it to be so) I 
figured I could use the linksys to pickup the wifi from the 
ATT box.  Silly me, that did not work.

The ATT box is really just the same as the linksys.  Wifi 
internet with a switch providing four cat 5 wire internet 
connections.  Of course the ATT box also provides the feed 
for the settop boxes for two TVs to get the cable feature.

Right now I have two USB 2wire wifi dongles each attached to 
one of the previously hard wired computers.  Works great, 
but I also wish to run the local network.  I found I can do 
that by using the previous network setup.  I still have the 
additional nics installed in these computers and the lan 
works as it did before on the thinet setup.

I have not been able to figure out how to get the USB 2wire 
wifi dongles to talk to the local thinet network.  I have 
not actually tried to browse using one of the computers that 
is not wifi equiped but I do not believe that would work 
without some effort to get the USB device to talk to the 
wired network.

I am looking for hints as to how to do this before I go off 
and spend another weekend learning the hard way.

What I really would like is for the wired network to 
interface to the ATT wifi and be available at all the wired 
computers, even those not equipped with a wifi card.

All else failing, I know that I can do a wire interface. 
Simply connect one of the cat 5 ports from the ATT box to 
the input of the Linux box where the cable modem input was 
located and use the system that way.

Trouble is the ATT box is in the den and my lan is already 
configured and wired to require an internet input in the 
front room (dining room which has been converted to an 
office).  I do not want to run cat 5 from the ATT box to the 
front room.  I could relocate the Linux box to the den, 
connect it to one of the cat 5 ports on the ATT box, then 
run coax from the Linux box to the thinet ethernet setup. 
That is possible because I already have a through-the-wall 
coax feed to the bedroom behind the den.  The bedroom also 
is wired for thinet.  I would just be feeding the internet 
access to a different end of the thinet cable.  That would 
work but I would rather use a wifi connection and forget 
about relocating (or even using) the Linux box.

Anyone out there willing to tackle this?  Any positive 
suggestions?  Has anyone out there done this?

If you have fiber optic telephone service, I bet you will 
soon have ATT U-verse and maybe the same problem.

The ATT setup is faster than a cable modem and is cheaper 
than any other internet/cable TV package I have seen.

Regards,
Frank Kamp