To crossover or not...

[diaconal]

Hi,

I have a few questions. I have a dell laptop with Broadcom NetXtreme CCM5702X Gigabit Ethernet internal card, and it seems that in windows, I can somestimes connect to other ppl's comp/laptop using an ordinary ethernet (not crossover or twisted pair), where I can see them and transfer stuff but they can't connect to my laptop. I always thought this was a feature in gigabit cards, where they sorta internally make the connection 'twisted'. Recently, I formatted my desktop and put in Gentoo, which is connected to a the home network with a dhcp server. Now, I only have one cable comming into my room so what I had done in Windows was, using two ethernet cards, bridged them, and connect my laptop on the network too. Again, I can access my network fine but no one could see my laptop on the network, which I don't mind. Ok, so now I'm in Gentoo on desltop and I tried the same thing, and I think the bridging works fine but I can't connect to my desktop from the laptop (bridged or not, and laptop has windows and gentoo).

I was wondering if there is a special command (eg. in ifconfig) where I can tell my laptop to connect direclty to my desktop (using a regular ethernet cable that I've always used.

Thanks...

[midknight_gentoo]

i think recent versions of windows will auto detect the connection and cable and make the change.. just like many new switches do.
but linux won't do it.. pc - pc youll need a crossover.. or a switch/hub between them...

[j-m]

Non-crossover cable works only for Gbit<-->Gbit NIC connections or with MDI/MDI-X autodetection switches.

[diaconal]

ah, so I'll have to find a twisted pair now... another thing, is there an easy way to figure out if a cable is twisted, and once I do use it, do I have to do anything special with ifconfig or it should just work?

[j-m]