Rosemary McGillicuddy wrote:
By mistake I bought an Ethernet 8 port Ethernet switch on an on-line
auction, I was looking for a router and got very confused with
terminology. Anyway - is it possible to network two PCs using this
switch, to share dial up modem and printer. I thought the answer was
yes, and tried MCC > Network sharing, but obviously need to do something
more, maybe in second box which is mepis.
Thanks
PS been looking at router prices and look quite a lot to me, in my
situation at present. The terms router, hub, and switch are very
confusing to me , and difficult to distinguish in on-line descriptions.
Rosemary, your confusion is natural. Many companies sell routers with a
built-in switch, but their first purpose is to act as a router, NOT a
switch.
Unfortunately, many people are now calling routers - switches, which
only adds to the confusion.
Let's be clear about this - a switch only connects multiple PC's and
servers to each other in one subnet ONLY! It also helps to control
network traffic between those systems. That's all it does in it's most
basic configuration.
If a box of some kind is used to connect multiple systems together AND
to another network - ie; another subnet OR the Internet, it is by
definition - a Router, since it now routes traffic from one subnet to
another.
If you have a look at the Linksys website (http://www.linksys.com), they
have a pretty decent Tutorial section that can help de-mystify some of
the terminology.
HTH's
--
Mr. Geek
Registered Linux User #190712
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