"If you are a small-business owner who wants to link Linux into a pre-existing Windows network, then you might want to try to use DHCP to get all of your machines talking to each other.
"DHCP allows an administrator to dynamically assign a network address to clients that connect to that network. It's useful, for example, with laptops that are used in several networks. DHCP is also a vital tool on large networks where keeping track of all addresses and configuring clients would otherwise be a major headache.
"Because of its ease of use, DHCP is perfect for heterogeneous networks, since DHCP clients' operating systems are transparent to the network. In other word's the network does not care what kind of machine--Linux, Windows, OS X--is using the network..."
