For a year I've been enjoying a small LAN with 4 pc's (one wireless) I could never hook up with just the TCP/IP protocol and had to add the IPX/SPX protocol to connect--all except one pc, that is--a wireless Sony Picturebook. they all run Windows XP.

Any guru's out there who know why I can't just have TCP/Ip and connect normally?

I ask because I'm experimenting with Xandros LInux right now and have it dual booted on several of the pc's. I have variable success in using a shared printer hooked to one of the Linux boxes over the MS network and wonder if it isn't some problem I've never understood about the MS netowrk. Everything works great between Linux boxes.

A simple home network made easy.

You dont mention that you are using a router but I will assume you are.
1. Ensure the router is DHCP enabled.
2. Set each machine to automatically configure its ip dns and gateway.

Now if you are still having problems connecting (its usually the router that is the culprit, try the next option...)

The router will generally offer an ip pool of 198.162.2.2-192.168.2.40

I would give the first computer an ip of 192.168.2.2, then .3, .4,.5. The subnet mask will be 255.255.255.0 .

I would set the dns and the gateway to 192.168.2.1 as the router would be acting as the gateway to the internet.

Does that help at all?

You could also statically set the ip addresses in the following fashion to test connectivity locally:

pc1 = 192.168.1.1

pc2 = 192.168.1.2

pc3 = 192.168.1.3

pc4 = 192.168.1.4

then goto a dos box (start-->run-->cmd.exe) and test with icmp:

from pc1 type: ping 192.168.1.2 You should get replies from the box that you are pinging (pc2 in this case)

If that does not work, make sure that any firewall apps you may have on each of the boxes are set to let that communication through (make sure your other internal ip's are set as "trusted") then try again.

If that does not work, ping 127.0.0.1 on any of the machines to test the card itself (thats the local loopback address)

Try those and let us know what you find out ;)

Hope this helps some :)

/JD

Oh yeah, either disable (remove) the novell protocol (ipx/spx) or make sure it is last in the binding order for each of the cards ;)

EDIT- Also, if you want the other boxes to show up in network neighborhood, you either need to run a wins server or use lmhosts files (to resolve the ip addresses to the netbios names) OR make sure that netbios over tcp is enabled in the advanced properties of the tcp/ip protocol under the wins tab ;)

Yes, using a Linksys wireless router with 4 port switch.

I'll use the above infor and reconfigure the lot. Thanks Terminatr and JackDynne

I'm sorta in the same boat. I have a Linksys router running with my roommates ME box (i know, trying to get him to upgrade), a 2k box and trying to add a Linux box. I can get the Linux on the net (so it's talking to the router ok) but can't get it to see the Windows boxes or the Win boxes to see the Linux box.
Am running Mandrake 8.2 if that helps. Any info. or pointing in the right direction would be much appreciated.
I'm pretty new to networking so please bear with me.

Thanks.

Indy

To use any Linux varient in a Windows area you will need to enable samba. This enables your Linux box to see, hear, and touch Windows boxes. You can even share a drive on your Linux box and have it read by ALL Windows boxes. :)

I hope that helps.

I'm sorry. I should have gone through everything I've done.

I have samba enabled, and it will see my other box in that it sees the 2k box name. but it will not see any of the shared drives and, therefore, mount any of the drives. 2k does not see the linux box at all.
my roommates computer it can see and see the shared drive but not mount the drive (I think the reason for that is that his box has a login password. Linux doesn't ask for a password to attempt to mount the drive but the 2k box does and will do so successfuly).

Thanks.

Indy

by not see the box, do you mean it's not even pingable?

Well, I messed around with it some more last night. Samba will see my 2k and ME boxes. It will attempt to mount the ME box, but fail, it won't even see any mountable drives on the 2k box.

2k will see the linux box, but it asks for a pass. The 1 user and root do not work to log in. It fails every time. That's where I'm at now.

Indy

Big time success. I have been running 4 Windows XP boxes for some time and because I had the Novell protocol in one of em, I had to put it in all to for the LAN to work and it really worked well. Frankly I never well understood this element.

I removed all those protocols and just have TCP/IP. IP's are not the problem since they are supplied by DHCP. I did reset the range and release all the computers individually, then renew. Perfect.

Then I rebooted 2 of the XP boxes into Xandros Linux and bingo. they all talk. Only thing left is to configure the remote printer for the Xandros boxes. Should be easy. By default samba runs in Xandros. There seems to be a choice of using Windows Workgroup or NFS. This is all working on Windows Workgroup.

I do like the Xandros distro--next favorite is Mandrake9. Least favorite is RedHat8. Also like Suse

JackDynne had the clue when he said to remove IPX/SPX