There is usually very little that a DHCP client needs to configure. In Linux, there are a few alternative DHCP clients. dhcp-client, dhcp3-client, pump and udhcpc are DHCP clients that are available in Debian distributions.
Once a DHCP client is installed, and a network interface is properly configured, the system should automatically acquire its IP address via DHCP.
Special care should be considered for servers. Many servers need to have a fixed IP address. This can be done by most, if not all, DHCP servers. However, the DHCP server must be configured to recognized specific MAC addresses, and associate them with specific IP addresses. If this step is not performed, then a server may be assigned different IP addresses, which can cause problems.