Networking 101

[WolfUK]

I'm having a few problems getting my netBook to talk to my desktop PC via a local ethernet network. I'm sure that this is compounded by the fact that I have no idea what I am doing so I'm looking for some guidance please. I'm sure that there are others in my position and that this will also occur more as wireless networking becomes more popular so I am prepared to put together a simple guide to getting a Windows PC to talk to a netBook once I can get things working.

My first stumbling block is that I don't have a clue how I need to configure Windows 2000 for networking. Does anyone know of any good web guides to getting a PC set up for networking in general? I am using Windows 2000 BTW. I can cope with setting up a FTP server on my machine (I'm going to use GuildFTPd) but I have no idea how to allow my netBook to use my PC's connection to the internet (a 56k dial-up modem at the moment).

Any help would be much appreciated and I will then be able to help others by documenting my processes.

TIA

[fladda]

There is a related thread over on Usenet at the moment. Have a look at Google Groups :-

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=p7v2sukoupf070mu3pctndc0jo5ph69mb2%404ax.c om&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dnetbook%2Bgroup:comp.sys.psion*%26hl% 3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26scoring%3Dd%26selm%3Dp7v2sukoupf070mu3pctndc0j o5ph69mb2%25404ax.com%26rnum%3D2

(If this link doesn't work do a search for '802.11b' in the comp.sys.psion* newsgroup). Sort by date order.

MT Mind recommends using a free proxy from :-

http://www.602pro.com/products/ls/

Note that YMMV. I've not tried this software myself (yet!)

All the information about creating networking for windows 2000 you will also find with Google. I don't use 2000, but I guess that just a minimum network configuration using TCPI/P should work OK. Just need to ensure that the Netbook has a TCPI/P address on the same subnet as the Win2000 box (i.e. just the last number in the TCPI/P address is different between the Netbook and the Win200 box). Set the network mask to 255.255.255.0. That will get you working for FTP. Disable all the other network protocols in Win2000.

Ralph

[WolfUK]

Thanks Ralph. I've finally been able to ping my desktop PC and I've just got FTP working. My main problem was that I was overcomplicating things ... I assumed that I would need to have some sort of network server running under Windows 2000 when in fact you just need to assign an IP address and subnet mask.

My hub is a bit of a cheap one ( a Netgear 10MB EN2005) so I cannot get full speed out of my kit yet but I managed to transfer 10MB of data to my netBook in seconds rather than minutes which is very liberating!

My next step is to look into internet access sharing but at least I know that the hardware works!

[WolfUK]

Ralph, before I go to bed I just wanted to report that the proxy software you gave a link to works beautifully and my networking is now fully set up. Woohoo! :)

Next step ... the wireless version (when I have some money!).

Thanks for your help.