Since I am the acting network admin for my client I get to do as I please with all the used equipment.
Free hub (I actually have 3) even though it’s only a 10baseT, I had them throw in a NIC in my newer machine and added one in my older machine. My old machine acts more as a file stuffer than anything else but it is my back up if this machine freaks out and I need to get a project done.
Basically all I paid for was the two cables…so if memory serves me right I paid less than $20.
I have all kinds of computer parts.
CD ROMS, floppy drives, memory (great for friends with older machines) NIC cards, hard drives (very small ones). I hate to throw computer parts away as there always seems to be someone I know with an older machine that needs a replacement of some kind.
Shoot, come to think of it there’s an ISDN modem floating around somewhere!
Well, what I was trying to stay away from was cabling the two together, which would mean cutting two holes in the walls and fishing a line through the house. It may have been easy, but I have no idea about how to do it and not very good access. It seems to be working fine for the internet sharing so far, although i haven’t figured out how to share files and the printer so far. Strangely, we can’t see each other in network neighborhood so far.
Seems your problem is that it doesn’t support NetBEUI - NetBIOS Extended User Interface.
Microsoft networking is done in that, I have to use Samba to do file and printer sharing with Janelle’s computer.
One more reason to use ethernet…
As for the cables, I admit to a lack of tidiness. I just ran it along the base of the wall, wedged and taped into cracks in the carpet, and wriggling under the door.
The advantage, though, is that it hasn’t cost me a dime, and we do have file and printer sharing. And full 10mbs file transfer, which can be convenient when I need to grab stuff off her CDROM, then delete it later (which happens frequently with my small HD)
Can you ping each other’s computer?
If you can ping, can you create a share to \IPaddress\share?
If you can do that, are you both in the same group under windows networking?
Do you have windows file and printer sharing enabled?
First off, give each machine a unique name and label a workgroup in Network Neighborhood. Mine are Lardo and Lardo2, my workgroup is assigned as Buttheads. Yes I did that on purpose – people can see you on the internet so I didn’t use anything remotely stating my name location or whatever.
#2. Give each machine an internal IP address. Usually starting with 192.168.0.1 with a subnet mask as 255.255.255.0 (you will find this under your network card properties in Network Neighborhood. The other machine list it as 192.168.0.2 subnet as 255.255.255.0.
Once you have successfully done that and rebooted click on the printer and file sharing under Network Neighborhood.
You will have to reboot again.
Under My Computer right click on the drive you want to share and click on the “sharing” tab. This is where you give access but it has to be a unique name.
Once you have done that on one machine or both, right click on Network Neighborhood and map the drive to the drive you shared.
As for printers, you need to install the printer driver and map to it through the printer setup. Remember that each printer needs a specific name to its self.
Oh and if you are doing this…PLEASE make sure you have firewall protection. I don’t recall if you said if you have it but if not (specially on a DSL with sharing your files and such) go to http://www.zonelabs.com and get their freebee, it works great.
If you don’t mind spending a few more dollars, (say ~$150) the Linksys Etherfast DSL/Cable Router is an excellent buy. It acts as a four switch 10/100Mbps hub, DSL/Cable Router for your LAN, DHCP Server for your LAN (Can support up to 254 computers if need be using NAT), simple Firewall, and several other functions.
My systems are Grimoire, Librum, Tome, Codex, and when I get it up and running, Scriptus.
I had forgotten about your Linux set up…of course my instructions were for a Windows 9x set up but hopefully it all worked out okay!
Just call me your “Computer Goddess.”
Oh and you said you are only getting 1mbps??? OY, you may want to rethink the idea of pulling some Cat 5 cabling through your home. You might be able to find someone who works for a cabling company to moonlight and do it for minimal costs. The company I use has left over cable from jobs they can’t use because of the length, they pull for very large installs like government jobs, commercial jobs like my client’s company, etc. In your case if it’s only 30 feet that’s should be easy to find very cheap or even free cable.
In my experience, we have had new cable pulls that cost about $95 including the cable in a commercial situation. If you find someone who moonlights you could probably have that cost cut in half or more… Just a thought as I know how slow it is using my 10baseT hub, opening even the smallest of graphics files are painfully slow…Well, if nothing else it’s something to think about for the future.
Word of advice, Democritus. If you are dual booting between Windows and Linux, do NOT put lilo on the MBR. If you are using WinNT don’t even think about it.
Generally I’d recommend using a boot disk, and keeping Linux on a logical partition in a case like that, makes recovery a lot easier since Windows doesn’t play nice with pretty much anything else.
Techie, thanks again. Since psycat and I are only planning on staying at this house another year or so before we look for something larger I don’t think we’ll worry about cabling the house. When we do find our new home, you can rest assured the whole place will be wired.
Kyber, thanks. Unfortunately, I am still tooling around with Linux and don’t really understand that sort of thing yet. The only thing I know about the MBR is it’s name.
So, this version of Linux (Mandrake) kinda set itself up and put (it’s not LiLo, but something similar)into, I’m assuming, the MBR. And, err…I haven’t exactly figured out how to fix that yet. I really would prefer to boot from a floppy, that way I wouldn’t have to select Windows every time I reboot my computer.
Another thing that I do is I make a folder on the desktop for each computer there is on the network. So when I open that folder, it opens the files list on the other network computer.
Weird, I’m almost positive Mandrake gives you a choice. I’ll check when I get home. Backing it off the MBR is a pain too, but I’ll see if I can dig up instructions on that too.
It probably does give you a choice, but I chose automatic installation the first time and it just stuck it on there. I had been woried about the large HD problem with dual boot machines (which obviously isn’t a problem with the newer kernels) because most of what I had read up until then said that was an issue. Now I know I can just boot Linux off a floppy (which would be so much better!) I just don’t know how to get it off the MBR. If you come across anything, let me know. I’d sure be grateful.
After much tweaking and dicking around, I have finally got internet sharing set up. I tried Windows ICS, but couldn’t use it because my ISP (Mindspring/Earthlink) uses PPPoE for their connection. I downloaded All Aboard and it works great. psy’s computer is getting ~600-700 Kbps according tothis site. Mine gets ~800-900. Woo hoo!
Demo,
I know I am coming in late to this discussion, but I read all of the above and I noticed that you said you would rather boot Linux off of a floppy rather than having to select Widnows in LILO. I do not know if you know this but you can set up LILO so that you default boot is Windows, and you can also edit the timer so that you do not have to wait so long before it automatically selects Windows. If you want to try this instead of the floppy boot then I can give you instructions on how to edit LILO.
Kyber,
Maybe I have just been lucky, but I have never had a problem with my LILO in the MBR on my dual boot Windows 98/RH 6. I also have a RH 6 server IP-MASQing/firewalling/web serving my DSL line but I hardly ever touch the machine so I have it banished to a corner of my house with nothing connected to it but power and two ethernet cables. The set-up I use is that I never actually access the server from itself, but rather I telnet to it from the dual boot (that I mentioned above) that is in my room. That way the little Linux server just chugs it’s little heart away in it’s dark little corner and I do not have to worry about having an extra monitor/keyboard/mouse and space for all of it. This has been going on for a year and I have never had a problem with Windows on the dual boot machine. Like I said, maybe I am lucky. So what problems have you run into with LILO being in the MBR?
