Here's the situation: I've got four computers in various stages of functionality and platform. I mainly use two of them. The third I use rarely, the fourth not at all (because I removed the power supply and hard drive when the power supply died). I want to hook them all together somehow so my wife and I don't have to email files or walk back and forth between them with a flash drive.
My main machine is a PC, fairly new and powerful. It uses Windows XP.
My wife's main machine is a Mac laptop. I think it has OS-X.
I also have a mini-Mac (G4) which uses OS-X.
The fourth defunct machine is a PC that's a little older. If I put a new power supply and a hard drive back into it, it should work okay, if a little pokey.
Are there any tech geeks out there who could direct me towards hooking these machines together on a local area network within my house? I know I'll need some kind of router/gateway/firewall, plus a hub of some kind. But I don't know much past that.
If you believe there is a better solution that what I'm proposing here, please tell me that too. I'm wide open to suggestions.
Thanks for any tips!
anyone know how to set up a home LAN?
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- Brian Boyko Offline
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You need to buy at least a 4-port router. Connect the router to your Internet connection, and the first port to the main computer to configure the router according to the instruction manual. At that point, you can just add additional devices to the router by stringing Cat5 cable from one computer to the router.
If you want a wireless setup, the setup is the same and you'll need to have a wired connection to your main computer at least once to set it up, but you'll need, instead, to buy a wireless router ad well as wireless cards or USB extensions for every computer you want to connect wirelessly.
To handle the networking, you need to enable File and Printer sharing on each of the Windows computers. The mac computers should sync automatically with each other and you can enable Windows file sharing from the control panel.
If you want a wireless setup, the setup is the same and you'll need to have a wired connection to your main computer at least once to set it up, but you'll need, instead, to buy a wireless router ad well as wireless cards or USB extensions for every computer you want to connect wirelessly.
To handle the networking, you need to enable File and Printer sharing on each of the Windows computers. The mac computers should sync automatically with each other and you can enable Windows file sharing from the control panel.
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- Brian Boyko Offline
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- Joined: March 18th, 2006, 1:48 am
- Location: Austin, TX
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It's not difficult. Just tedious.the_orf wrote:Sounds straightforward enough. Thanks, Boyko!
I would recommend using wireless connections to avoid spaghetti or drilling through walls if all four computers are not in the same room. I would also recommend using Wired connections for those computers used regularly (workstations, file servers) and wireless connections for those computers used rarely (graphics machines)