Networking hardware choices for a newbie

Hopefully I'm posting in the right group (there are so many "networking" newsgroups around, and I'm new to this).

Anyway, I'm confused about what kind of hardware boxes/adapters etc. I will need for my planned setup. Let me explain:

I have a 800/256 ADSL broadband connection. A Netopia-3351 ADSL modem (router?) is lent me by the provider, but has to be returned to them when I'm no longer a customer. A PC (running Windows ME and Mandrake Linux) is connected to it via a PCI networking card.

I'll be buying a Mac Powerbook G4

which has a built-in 802.11G wireless connection. I want to use this to make it fully portable in my home.

I would also like to use the same USB scanner (Canon N-670u) and USB printer (Canon S-500) that the PC uses now. Preferrably wireless if possible.

I've also picked up on all this talk about "free" (well, nothing's really free, is it?) or cheap telephone usage via the net. I really don't know too much about this, but belive there are two main groups: computer to computer communication where the computers at each end have to use the same software (such as "Skype"), and IP-telephony where you have a gateway to the normal phone-lines, so that you can call/receive calls to/from anyone who has a regular phone.

I'm not ready to plunge into this and give up my regular phone line just yet, but would like to try it out.

I believe that IP-telephony doesn't need a computer to run, but just relies on some sort of interface between the (regular) telephone and the broadband socket (or perhaps through the ADSL modem).

For any kind of telephony I would like to use a regular phone handset, so would it be possible to set something up where I could connect my regular phones (a cordless phone, and a corded one) for use with (a) "Skype" and similar free services, (b) IP-telephony, and (c) regular telephone use as I'm using now?

I guess (c) isn't that important, because if I decide to go with IP-telephony I'll cancel my regular phone-landline anyway.

But I would absolutely like to share my regular phone between "Skype" and other programs like it as well as IP-phoning. Or does Skype need an independant headset (or mic/headphones) system, and IP-telephony use a dedicated interface on its own?

So what kind of networking hardware would I need to make all this possible? Let me summarize what I want to do:

1) Connect a PC to the Internet via ADSL (already done and working) 2) Connect a Mac Powerbook (laptop computer) wirelessly to the same ADSL connection. 3) Let both computers use the same USB printer and USB scanner. 4) Use a regular phone for IP-telephony 5) Use the same phone for "Skype" type telephony

I really don't know much about this stuff, but I've been looking around a bit and it seems like the Linksys WRT-54-GP2

might be able to do at least some of the things I want. Any opinions on this?

Anything else that will work? I prefer "all-in-one" boxes over a rack of differently looking and designed boxes of different brands (which you can be sure are made in such a way that you can't stack them on top of each other), with loads of cables running between them and half a dozen AC adaptors.

I wouldn't mind having an ADSL modem being built into this box either, since I might need to buy a modem myself in case I change over to another provider. Not sure if the above Linksys box has that, but I know that I've seen boxes from Linksys that do have ADSL modems built in if I haven't misunderstood completely.