PPPoA router but ubuntu wants PPPoE

hi all
just a quick question. recently i have been messing with various OS on my laptop. eversince installing pure 8.04 on my pc i have wanted a clean sweep on my laptop to. now ive tried several flavours and have settled on fluxbuntu. whilst fiddling with the laptop i had a major problem with the ethernet, in that, it wouldnt work. after many hours of bouncing off the walls in frustration i think i stumbled across the reason. my belkin router is set to PPPoA and i believe that linux expects to be dealing with PPPoE.
well i dont have the option of changing that setting as its my ISP's settings. i have looked and looked for a solution but have not as yet found one here or any other forum. can someone give me a definitive answer as to how you get round this problem. symptoms are there is a wired connection but the IP's are wrong. static IP is not an option either. testing in CLI often produces that well known line 'no dhcpoffers'. the question is academic as i have manged to get the wireless usb working under flux. but for usefull knowledge later on down the line id like to know how you get this sorted.