Can I network an Apple iBook to PC's for internet?

[Felecha]

Any networking jock who could tell me for sure? Cable internet access has come to my little dirt road community, and I really want to get it. The difference between my 45,000 here at home and the fast connection at school is just amazing. I have only the vaguest idea of networking, but I understand that I could newtork all 4 of my computers, and get any and all on the internet simultaneously. I understand I'd have to get a card for each machine, and run cable through the house to hook them all up, but the question is -- one of those 4 is my 16-year old daughter's Apple iBook. Right now, with a dialup ISP, she gets on fine, I get on fine with my PC (although not simultaneously), etc. But if I tried to rely on a network for a connection, could I add hers somehow to a network of PC's? I hate to think that if I go to cable she'll be left out somehow. And I certainly don't want to keep my old ISP connection just for one user in the household.

Thanks

F

 

[loogie]

yeah.

 

[hans007]

if you get a dedicated router (either a PC for it or a real box like a linksys), it wont matter what OS the systems use. The linksys one i have is dhcp, just plug computers into it and its great

 

[Felecha]

OK, thanks, looks like it's doable -- got any tips on where to go to get a tutorial or something, so I can figure out what to get and what to do?

 

[hans007]

well if you get the linksys, its pretty much idiot proof. I had it on a home phoneline setup network bridge. Just hooked all the PCs up to their phone lines and network cards installed, turned on the router, turned on the cable modem, turned on the phoneline-network to ethernet bridge, turned on the PCs, and they were all on the net.

 

[troubledshooter]

I ran the following for about 2.5 years now:

ipnetrouter ($40 program for the Mac) sets up a software router out of one computer. VERY full featured, don't know about a PC version. www.sustworks.com for a d/l version.

Follow their directions (see URL above), you end up needing one computer to be on whenever you want to give access to the rest the "host" and other than that you just need a hub and the afore mentioned software.

Computers attatched:

NEC P3 500
233mhz G3
Ibook
Performa 6300
Sony Laptop

You can plug them in and out as you please just so long as the host is up.

best of luck!

 

[Felecha]

Networked through the phone line????

 

[Homer]

Oh yes, he's not sh1tting you. Phone lines, household wiring, wireless, whatever. All more or less do-able if you don't want to be running CAT5 everywhere, but whether these options are reasonable for a multi-platform home LAN I don't know. You should be able to network your MAC & PCs fine with EtherNet (regular network as you are thinking of it), as per Hans007. Buy the router, the LinkSys is reputedly good, network cards as necessary (does the ibook have a built-in network interface? If not -> ouch! Probably expensive. The rest are cheap.), buy/make cables, & follow the instructions with the router. The other option is to use one of your computers as the router. I have done this, and while it works well for me, it was not all that easy to set up, means one computer has to have two network cards in it - which can be a pain to install - and has to be left on all the time. There may however be a modest initial cost saving, in the $50 - $100 range.

If you want more explicit advice and maybe a precise list of components by name & model, you could try posting a request in the networking forum.

Also look here, and here

 

[hans007]

yeah felecha , the phoneline network is running on a seperate protocol, so you need a bridge to attach it to the rest of the ethernet network. So that is like $80 from linksys also. It even is the same size as the router so they stack with these little notches on them. So i hook the uplink on the router to the bridge, and just plug all the computers in all the rooms to the phone lines with their phoneline network cards. My dad's was hooked up to the routers regular ethernet port directly. That was all because my mom and dad didnt want us to have cables all over and wiring the walls is not an option. A 1 port linksys router is only about $80 and you can hook it up to a hub and be done with it, it really doesnt make sense to build a router computer, since i doubt you could build one for $80 unless you already have a spare pentium or something and know how to install openbsd or linux and configure it. What sucks is that my parents are moving to a new house that hasn't been finished being built yet, so our investment in the bridge is gone, since the new house has ethernet in the walls.

 

[Felecha]

Well, thanks, all. I'll just drop one more question and then maybe move over to Networking Forum.

Hans007 - you mention cables in the walls. One of the awful things that happened when I built my own new house 3 years ago was that we told the builder and the electrician that we wanted to think of the future, and we expected that eventually we would have some sort of high speed connection for the world of the future, and why shouldn't we spend the money to wire the house for whatever might be the networking of that future world? I didn't know beans about it, but the electrician said, sure, let's put coax in the walls. He didn't know that RG 6 was for TV, not computers. I now learn that RG58 is what we should have had, but what -- rip it out and replace it?

Anyway, can anyone tell me for 100% sure -- am I right that the RG6 coax just won't do for my networking ideas? Every room in the house, except closets and bathrooms, has these nice outlets with phone jack and two coax connectors, and I just hate it.

 

[Homer]

OK then:

IT JUST WON"T DO FOR YOUR NETWORKING IDEAS

Seriously, I think you could make it work, but you do not want to. Older, and still in use, system called, I think, 'Token Ring". (This is not my main line of work, you understand). Uses coax. Much more expensive I expect. No advantages other than you've got the wires in.

I hope someone jumps in and says I'm dead wrong & tells you how you can make this work great.

 

[hans007]

yeah, its cat5 rj(45) that you need. its got like 8 wires, and coax is just s single thick wire