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There are ISP dialer programs you can use for dialup access where you don't actually need the ISP software to connect. For broadband, usually all you really need to do is plug in the network cable and open a browser. If you've got DHCP networking set up on your Linux system, which is usually the default, you're probably good. If you're running multiple systems off one broadband connection with an off the shelf router, your router is handling the uplink anyway, and all you have to do with your Linux system is plug into the network.

As for LUGs:
http://www.linux.org/groups/