Just thought you all would like to know, my friend got the cable modem
working. It was so simple it borders just this side of stupid:

dhcpcd -h cXXXXXXX

where XXXXXXX = the number he was given by @home. 

I appreciate all the help you all sent my way on this - mainly because I no
longer have to hear him gripe about how easy it is to get MS Windows
working with it.

Thanks again...

Randy