Connecting two PC's

[Spacecake]

I have no experience of networking in linux, and i was wondering if someone could give me some advice.
I want to connect two PC's together, one running Linux and the other running Windows. The Linux box would be connected to the internet via dialup, and i'd like the Windows one to be able to share this connection - not just a HTTP proxy or something, but for every app to act like it is connected to the internet. I'd also like to be able to telnet into my Linux box from the windows computer.
Filesharing between the two would be nice, but it isn't required.

Do you have any suggestions as to the cheapest and easiest way to do this, and what i would need?
I thought about a parallel link as seen as it is only two PC's, but i'm not sure how this would work.
I don't know how much it would cost to do this with ethernet - presumably more expensive.

[danrees]

Ethernet's a doddle. You can get two cards and a hub for about £60 (AFAIK).

You might find the following useful: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/mini/other-formats/html_single/Home-Network-mini-HOWTO.html

Small world. How's bjork? :)
(excuse me if that seems random)

[David Dorward]

Then to share the connection check this out:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/IP-Masquerade-HOWTO/index.html

(note that any servers running on the Windows machine will be inaccessable unless you set up port forwarding - and this includes sending files to people with ICQ, IRC, etc)

[Spacecake]

I'll look into the ethernet solution, then... as seen as the PLIP howto says no one has ever managed to get a link between windows and Linux.

And yes, small world indeed :)
I saw you on here a month or so ago and thought the same thing. I was also surprised back then when i went to your site and you used the same exact distro and kernel version as me.

I ought to post in this forum more often... i only tend to remember it's here when i have a question that needs answering... :o

[Malakin]

If it's just two computers and you're using dialup there's no reason to buy a hub. Two network cards and a crossover cable is all you need. A crossover cable is identical to a regular network cable except the pinout is different so it doesn't cost anymore.