Using just an ethernet cable and ethernet cards? I only want to connect my laptop to my family's desktop. The Desktop is slightly faster, and has Windows XP-Pro, and the laptop has Windows XP-Home...

Yes, but make sure you get a "crossover" cable to connect them. The wizard for setting up a home network should walk you thru it.

"Crossover cable...?" Will a patch 5 ethernet cable work?

No, it won't.

You have two choices:

1. Buy a crossover CAT-5 cable, wherein a couple of the wires are crossed over (hence the name). They are fairly cheap; I found a three-foot cable for US$3.50 at CompUSA. These cables are not interchangable with regular CAT-5 cables.

2. Buy a small hub or switch, and use regular CAT-5 cables. I saw prices as low as US$16 on-line, but reasonably, expect to pay a minimum of US$25.

I'd lean towards a hub or switch because it's easier to add more folks to it later on... or other things like a printer. I'm fond of Linksys, but they're around $40-50 for a basic hub or switch.

All right! Good to know! I suppose that that explains the fact that my computers claim that nothing is connected to them, even after I go through the wizard...hmm, well, I may just go the cheap route for now, considering...the wizards also seem to have options for connecting through different plugs (like a serial port)...are those linkups any good? Is the main thing just bandwidth, comparing ethernet with the other networking options?

Hmmm... I can't remember the last time I tried to connect through anything but a network port. I remember the olden days when we didn't have them, and would connect via serial ports and such... those days are pretty much gone. Anyone remember what the product was that used the big yellow cable to connect? I almost carried one of those for a while...

I think it's more of an issue of technology -- no one today (for all practical purposes) is going to be able to connect to you with anything but a network cable. Speed is the difference between network cables, from 4 mb (token ring) to 10 mb (10baseT) to 11mb (wireless-B) to 54mb (wireless-G) to 100mb (100baseT). And gigabit ethernet is out there as well... just not in the residential world.

Nope, that's also out there, a gigabit NIC is available for as low as 100$.
And Bungleau, I think you're referring to RG-11 and it was used along with a terminator. 's been a while so I'm not sure.

What level wiring do you use for gigabit?

I don't think I'm referring to RG-11 -- was that the garden hose? It was a combination hardware/software package that you bought to let you share stuff between two computers. But I think if you had the cable, you didn't really need the software, 'cause I remember people asking if you had one of these cables.

Laplink! I just googled and found the answer. Laplink used to make the connection through your parallel port. Apparently, they now use USB ports to connect between machines...

There. I can rest easier now. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Erm... wiring is always level 1, physical. I'm thinking you're refering to the layers of difference? In that case it would be levels 1, as they use different wires; 2, as there's a small difference in how the protocols handle timers(windowing maybe, someone correct me on this); and 3 I think.

Sorry... by "level", I didn't mean network level. I was referring to the fact that CAT-3 wiring will support up to 10BaseT, and CAT-5 wiring will support up to 100baseT. Is there a CAT level for gigabit, or does CAT-5 somehow handle it?