Tech query~

I want to try to interconnect two computers in my apartment, my IBM Aptiva Mandrake/Win98 dualbooter that I usually use for my music playback automation and my donated Dell Dimension 3000 (for lack of standardisation) WinXP via a USB connection. My IBM's a 400MHZ AMD K62 and my Dell is a 2GHz Pentium 4. Both machines have built in USB2 interfaces, and the IBM accomplishes this via a PCI interface card. (It also has four USB1 sockets built-in to the motherboard.)

I want to connect these so I can transfer my audio and other data directly from the XP to the IBM and vice-versa, currently I am using a portable USB hard drive contraption I rigged up for this purpose. (Actually a Quantum Fireball ATAPI hard drive in a USB drive box.) I use the XP for processing and recording. The hard drive is convenient for expansion but it is a hassle for transferring data between two machines.

I am hoping there is a way I can set the systems up such that they read up as a seperate (additional) hard drive on either end. (i.e. my IBM's C: drive would read up as F: on the Dell, as well as the XP reading up as drive F: on the IBM--I have two CD drives installed in each, and they are on D: and E:.) Thus creating a sort-of miniature "quick and cheap" LAN-type concept between the systems. Also the Dell does not have a standard RS232 serial interface (but the IBM does, go figure) so a null modem setup wouldn't be practical.

Is this even possible, and if so, what type of software would I need for it?

Ethernet....share the drives to each system then map to them!
Fast ethernet PCI boards are a dime a dozen these days.

That is true but a compatibility issue arises:

Is Ethernet via PCI well supported under Win98?
The XP system wouldn't really be a problem because it already has it at the hardware level, being built in to the motherboard and accessible just right below the printer port. Not entirely certain about the software/OS support (i.e. if I have it already in my system or if I need to obtain third-party drivers) but I should check into that.

(Although I can safely say I haven't ruled the Ethernet idea out as a potentiality for exploration!!)

Any PCI ethernet board should work just fine so long as you get the correct win98 driver for it!
Get yourself an unmanaged fast ethernet switch and you are ready or you could just forget the switch and go peer to peer with a crossover ethernet cable.

"...peer to peer with a crossover ethernet cable."

This is a direct-cable connection, right? Plugging one end of a cable into one computer and doing the same with the other computer?

That's the type of setup I am going for, as little hardware between the machines as possible (preferrably none), and as direct of a connection as possible. (Reason: Limited budget and limited working space.)

Missing, your thoughts?

A crossover ethernet cable is not a standard cable. Standard ethernet cables connect the computer to the hub or router.
Standard cables are wired pin to pin.

http://www.homenethelp.com/web/explain/about-ethernet-crossover.asp

You can definitely go the crossover cable route (it's a modified ethernet cable with the transmit and receive wires crossed). But save yourself and buy a cheap router. You can buy them cheaply at Fry's for about $20 sometimes (with wireless, too). This week Fry's has a simple wired switch (Ethernet only, I mean, not USB) for about $5.99. That's probably as cheap as or cheaper than buying a special crossover cable.

With a router all you need is the router and two ethernet cables (assuming each computer has an ethernet card - I'm sure the newer one does). You can get cheap ethernet cards too - again, Fry's sometimes has them on sale for $1 a piece. Free Geek in SE Portland has used ethernet cards all the time for $1 each.

Yes, they will usually work fine in Windows 98 although Windows 98 itself is so awful I almost won't touch such a computer anymore (or with Windows ME - yuck!). Windows 2000 is infinitely better than ME and 98. With Windows 98, whenever you make a change, you need to reboot. You can get an ethernet network working for sure with it but it will take more time than the trivial setup on a Windows 2000 or XP machine. Can you share with Mandrake booted up instead?

Andrew

Zak...yes crossover cable is direct connect and you can get then pretty cheap at most PC stores as well. I have my own crimper and bulk cable so I just make them as I need them. However I buy the bulk 1.99 patch cables as they are just so darn cheap and my fat fingers get cramps making to many of those things! You may already have the switch at home depending on your internet connection. The isp may have supplied you with a dsl or cable router with a built in lan switch. If so just slam the board in the 98 box and use a std cable to connect to it and you are connected!

BTW...do not even consider null modem......way to slow. Network or peer to peer ethernet or usb peer to peer is best choice as I see it.

Go with the Ethernet. I think networking over USB mostly sucks.

For win98, get a nice 3com card. They've got good drivers.

You are on a DSL / Cable right? (Mine is setup for 10.0.0.x, yours may vary...)

Pick a couple of private ip addresses (10.0.0.x) for each machine and set them static, set your netmask 255.255.255.0, your gateway to the router (10.0.0.1), and your DNS servers to whatever makes sense.

If you want to capture the current settings, do an ipconfig /all on the Xp machine. That will supply you with all of the above for your particular router. Set the other machine to the same, but for a different static IP address.

Put 'em in the same workgroup, setup your shares and you should be golden.

Dual boot your Linux and configure the ethernet the same way. 3coms are well supported there too.

I used to null-modem my two 486DXes years ago (last one of which bit the dust about a month ago, R.I.P.) through Interlink in PC-DOS but I won't even bother trying it with my (somewhat) more modern machinery--way too slow indeed. That worked really well with the older tech but (even transferring large WAV files like I do) would be horrid nowdays.

How would I go about implementing a P2P USB (2.0) connection between two systems, one of which has an OS that Microsnot probably didn't even think of supporting at that time? This seems the most attractive idea to me because of the simplicity of the hardware, and its cost and availability.

Oh, and Andrew2~
I really only use 98 for compatibility, like the occasional sessions in SimCopter (which tends to run *incredibly lousy* in Linux!) or using USB transfer (the operability I am rather uncertain of in Mandrake on my 400.) Outside of that I either use Mandrake for my audio (actually Mandriva but I seem to be stuck in habit) or XP for my networking, mostly. (I look at 98 as a platform that's there "just in case I might need it sometime." ;o)

But I rarely (if ever) use 98 as my main platform any more.

Again, you're just going to be better off using Ethernet to transfer files. It should work with every OS you mention. USB PTP you could probably get working but with more hassle and maybe not less expense than just going the Ethernet route.

Andrew

Missing (you apparently posted your response above while I was typing mine up)~

No, I am not.........I use dial-up. Being a college student and making just over minimum wage just doesn't put it within my budget right now.

My neighbour has DSL through Q-West and they are paying about $75/month to access pretty much the same Internet I can access for about $8/month through my regular telephone line! (People-PC, though I have my E Mail through Hotmail......PPC's E Mail system I would NEVER recommend anyone use for any purpose!!)

Slow, yes, but for me it's really a matter of "whatever it takes".

Workgroups/netmask/IP addresses? What does this all mean in English? With the sole exception of plugging a line into my phone jack and the other end into my modem, I am *unbelievably stupid* with things concerning that kind of tech!

Basically all I want is a way to connect two systems with as little work/hassle as possible for simple data transfers..........

The easiest thing to do is buy a cheap router as I said. If you don't care about wireless, you should be able to find a used wired router for under $10 (my last two wireless routers I paid under $10 each for, on sale). If you get a router, you can simply set each PC to say, "Assign me the IP address automatically." Then you don't need to worry about any of that netmask/IP address stuff Missing mentioned - the router will take care of it.

If you don't want to get a router and want the crossover cable route, then you need to do the stuff Missing mentioned and set up your IP and netmask on each machine manually - more of a pain but doable. I'd assing one computer an IP of 192.168.0.2 and the other 192.168.0.3 in the TCP/IP setup, and use a netmask value of 255.255.255.0 for both machines. That's probably all you need t do. (These are numbers you would set when setting up a TCP/IP type network.)

The Workgroup is important though for the Windows side (although I'm told that two computers in different workgroups can actually talk to each other). In Windows, a Workgroup is kind of what it sounds like: a way to group networked computers together. The key thing is that its easier if your networked computers have the same workgroup name. I simply use the name "WORKGROUP" for all my computers; sometimes Microsft uses "MSHome" as the default. You can change the WORKGROUP in control panel somewhere.

For the Linux box, you'll need Samba to access a computer on a Windows workgroup, and for Windows computers to see the Linux box's files you'll need to setup a Samba server. In Ubuntu Linux all of this is really simple to setup - not sure what vintage of Linux and window manager you are using (Gnome might be easiest, but it is a memory hog).

You could also simply use an OpenSSH server instead of a Samba server on the Linux box to share its files (and that completely eliminates Windows workgroups from the equation). That's pretty easy to setup too (acutally you need to install "sshd.") Then you can install the free WinSCP tool on your XP box and copy files back and forth with WinSCP. Google for WinSCP to find it and download it. On the Linux box, sshd may already be installed - if not, install it, it's very standard. I wouldn't even venture to guess how this might work in Win98 - I'd probably not even attempt sharing the files with Win98 (can you access your Win98 files when you are booted into Linux?)

Andrew

For all this hassle, why not just spring for one of those 2 or 4GB usb keys and be done with it?

Nearly all of them come with win98 drivers still. Seems to me, this would be the biggest bang for the buck and time overall.

Plus, you can then easily carry your data around, if you need to, as well!

(or lose the damn key...)

Throw an ethernet cable over the fence and ask your neighbor to connect it to his router!

...or spring for a wireless router.

Actually with linux you dont need samba, you could use rcp or uucp.

GOD I HATE ACRONYMS

GIHA

You can't copy from a Windows share without Samba. The only other way is to install some other server (e.g. OpenSSH) on the Windows box.

From a Windows box, you could install rcp or something like that to copy FROM the Linux box.

Andrew

I vaguely remember the Workgroups thing, my old 486es ran Win for Workgroups 3.11 (apparently a standard version of Win 3.1 with an expansion pack, thus making it 3.11.......that's the way the machines came with it preinstalled!)

Never worked with the Workgroups thing tho (didn't even have Internet access on either of them, ever! That didn't come until the IBM) but I have heard/read a little bit about it.

Is the WGPO thing still the same in 98 and XP as it was in the old-skool 3.11 or has it changed? Because I still have the books and manuals the old Win's came with, for historical reference.......

Looks like the wired router/PCI card way now appears to be the one to gravitate towards. I will be making a run to the Goodwill to-morrow, I will try to see what there is.

And Missing--

I mentioned above I have a 10-gig external USB hard drive......wouldn't bother with the keychains tho. Too much of a chance of getting lost, because of their small size (and my crappy eyesight......)

Workgroups is a legacy thing left over from the old days of Windows networking. They tried to simplify (ha ha!) networking of computers - and it has nothing to do with the internet. People used Workgroups in offices when networking computers longer before they had internet access. Setting the workgroup is more of a legacy thing you have to consider rather than a help at this point - not important unless you don't have it set right. The only thing you need to worry about now is making sure your computers are in the same workgroup. You set the workgroup once and never worry about it again.

If by chance you will be stopping at the Goodwill in SE Portland, consider stopping by Free Geek nearby:

http://www.freegeek.org/

if you need used stuff such as Ethernet (NIC) cards. Great place, neat stuff.

Andrew

I'll second the Free Geek plug.

Saw that mention moto, but still I've got to wonder what you are doing that requires a continious data link. What's the task at hand?

Actually I am considering a temporary installation--one I can put up and remove quickly with little hassle, also because I am in a (sort of) one room apartment with little room to work. This is why I had originally proposed a USB-based "Lan" setup before.

Re: the data link: mostly for transferring large files (like full-bandwidth 44100/16b Stereo Wave files) and possibly large quantities of contiguous MPEG3s among others between machines. It does get kind of-- I dunnow, "cumbersome" to have to load all of it up on disc/portable HD to do a similar task.

I figure it would be more efficient just to connect both machines together and transfer all directly, instead of using a removable storage system somewhere in the middle!

(Note: I am not planning to phase out the removable HD completely--I still need something to back all the data up on!)

I think this has flipped several times but the ethernet seems to be the best to connect them together for file transfer and you cannot beat a 250gb usb HD as a backup system with a price of $60 to $80 these days. Cheap affordable and tons of room! For about $50 I highly recommend Norton ghost and using that to make image backups of your drives. Much faster than just raw data backup and very easy to image a new drive with should you lose one. Norton ghost also does not care about the drive format or operating as it just makes a duplicate image (snapshot if you will) of your hard drive. with ghost utilities you can also extract individual files if need be as well. Well worth the money!

Oh yeah.

I have never really been too much of a fan of imaging programmes, outside of PKZIP or its GUI Winzip......I have other data on those drives as well, and sometimes if I screw something up (i.e. process the sound in a WAV poorly, for example) I can just go into whichever directory my original is in and start over. Hate to do that but sometimes it's unavoidable........

But as far as the removable drives are concerned they are a Godsend! I am considering getting at least an 80 (can go bigger if need be) but then we run into compatibility troubles, particularly on the 98.

98 and 98SE--I run SE on my IBM--both have a nasty bug in the OS code that apparently never got fixed directly, which prevents it from properly reading FAT32 volumes larger than 30 gigs. This isn't the same as with the XP, where a limitation is placed in the OS to try to tie you down to the largely-incompatible NTFS file system--which I would almost never recommend using on removable HDs that you intend to use on different OSes, such as 98 or Linux!

Reportedly (or so I have heard) there is a software patch you can install into 98 to enable it to read the full drive, but i can't seem to find it for download anywhere. Maybe MS has a copy in its Knowledge Base?

If nothing else, there's always the option of multi-partitioning, I guess (maybe one logic drive for projects in progress, one for finished projects, one for system backups, one for programmes and misc. junk...........)

And for interconnecting, I probably will go with an Ethernet setup of some kind.

You can install XP on a fat32 partition you just lose tons of security when you do that. Basically delte the partition and redo it then use the WIN98 boot disk and format it. Install XP and keep the current file system intact. You can later on use a windos command to convert up to the NTFS files system if you ever off the 98 machine. XP can read FAT32 of 98 but 98 FAT32 cannot read NTFS so that is were the ethernet comes into play. Norton Ghost is a must have. It is a truly great utility to have for data backups and easy system recovery in the event of a drive failure. The newer versions are miles ahead of those you mentioned.

$25.00 with $9.00 s&h new on Ebay. I beleive it also comes with e legacy CD that will work on 98 machines so check and make sure to get that version if you go that route.

http://cgi.ebay.com/SYMANTEC-Norton-Ghost-10-0-Full-Retail-New-Sealed_W0QQitemZ2 50084641414QQihZ015QQcategoryZ51331QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

"XP can read FAT32 of 98 but 98 FAT32 cannot read NTFS......"

That's precisely why I never use or recommend it for portable drives. Not at all portable, in a sense. I also still have a few old DOS programmes (mostly games) I sometimes run on the XP which run just fine on a FAT32 but tend to have problems in NTFS. (For this reason, even my XP, in fact is on a FAT32 disk.) I get a "Disk Error" message whenever I try to save a Return to Zork game file running on an NTFS disk!!

And security: Since I am on dialup on a single user machine, running a Norton Firewall, the security has never been an issue for me. See, with dialup it is a little more secure than an always-on Broadband, in that you can summon or break the connection as you need it. It's just the transfer speeds where D.U. just sucks, I think!

Hey to each his own...you do what you got to do to get it done, you know........

Just take your portable thumb drive with you to a public PC somewhere with a broadband connection and download there. Smokeys in Hazel Dell has public Pc's now.....you can have a brew and a slice while you download your tunes and stuff. Probably be done quicker that way and be back home before you could finish with your dialup!

Add:
Just be cautious of public PC's as they could have keyloggers and such so if you use one change your password when you get back home! Never do any shopping or banking ever on a public PC.
If anyone believes this to be an OK practice please just drop your money in my PO box as I could use it more than the crook who will eventually take it from you!

Yes, exactly!!

Anymore nowdays, public PCs are literally an ID theft incident waiting to happen to the unscrupulous users! And for that reason, I really only use the public PC for little more than reading Wikipedia, if even that!! I make it a habit never to do anything identifyable, like E Mail or even discussion forums, outside the four walls of my apt. or the basement at home.

Very useful safety advice Darktemper!!

I recently had to setup and config a firewall for my neighbours on the DSL (for some odd reason they have a hardware firewall box--Lord only knows where they got it--and a software based firewall working conjunctionally. And it occured to me: their system, I swear, is probably thousands of times more secure than the entire CIA's computer network, maybe exaggerating just a little. But if I need to do any large downloads I usually have to watch their two kitties, as they go out of town quite a bit throughout the year, and they also let me use their DSL. We do go way back.........)

I am a fan of True Image from Acronis (a competing product with Ghost). When I bought True Image about a year and a half ago, the current verions of True Image got better reviews than the then-current version of Ghost. I don't know how they match up today, but True Image has saved my butt or saved me time many, many times. It's sooooo nice to save not only backups but also - snapshots. Like this week I am doing a bunch of updates on a friend's Windows XP computer, without being entirely sure she wanted them all done. So I made a snapshot of the whole drive as an image. If for some reason she hates what i did, I can "undo" the whole thing.

I tend to use FAT32 partitions sometimes (e.g. a shared partition on my dual-boot laptop, so both Linux and XP can read/write files there reliably). But NTFS is sort of essential when you are saving large files. (For example, images of friends' hard drives.) FAT32's maximum file size is something like 4GB. True Image does allow you to split image files into multiple files, but it's still nice to have a 40GB image file in a single file and not split up into 10 files. And Linux can read NTFS, at least, even if there aren't yet 100% approved NTFS write drivers out there.

I almost refuse to do any support of Win98 and ME machines for anyone, because they are such a pain to work with. if it were me, I would find a way to minimize what I do with those OS's, use them for say emergency only (or if there is some game that will ONLY run in 98/ME). It's too frustrating for me to bother with them. Windows 2000 by contrast is far superior.

Andrew

Most people who supply legitimate public PC's are in the practice of locking them down pretty well and re-image them on a nightly basis. But there are absolutely no safeguards that I know of the will prevent ID theft when an unscrupulous person attaches a hardware based key logger between the keyboard and the PC. The PC will not even know it is there and everything is recorded and later used for illegal activities! Just because you trust the store that hosts those PC's does not mean they can or will ever be 100% safe to use!
LET THE USER BEWARE!

Edit Add:
Great topic for a new thread!

The firewall for my home network (where I host my website, off of my DSL line) is an old Celeron 466 Box on which I put IPCop, a terrific free firewall program (some people prefer M0n0wall, but I have reasons for keeping IPCop). It's not just the security - it's the flexibility. For one, I have an OpenVPN server add-on built into it. So I can VPN into my home network from anywhere, securely (and OpenVPN was EXTREMELY simple to setup - VPNs can be a pain). It's also got some neat features for traffic shaping and a good name server (it's smart enough to know when I'm inside the network that MYDOMAIN.com, which is hosted inside, should go to the local IP not outside). And it has all the standard firewall features. And it's really cool!!! Plus it puts an old otherwise too-slow-for-modern-use computer to good purpose.

M0n0wall has its own neat features; it's designed to run off of a CF card entirely of RAM, so you don't even need a hard drive for it (so much more reliable as hard drives can and do die on you). It just lacked a feature I needed.

Andrew

If I ever setup my webspace at home I think I may do so on an old open VMS box. Those things are bullet proof and virtually hacker proof as web servers. I would prefer myself to configure my Cisco router as a VPN server if I ever wanted to VPN into my home system. Cisco VPN with 3DES encryption and Cisco VPN client is a pretty secure (but pricy and hard to configure for a novice) VPN solution!

"if it were me, I would find a way to minimize what I do with those OS's, use them for say emergency only (or if there is some game that will ONLY run in 98/ME)."

Yup, that's what I do. Mandrake for most things, 98 "in case I need it."