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Twizzle
April 18th, 2008, 06:23 PM
This is not specifically a Ubuntu question which is why I am posting it here.

I have Ubuntu running in my study and XP running on my media PC. I used to get my broadband from BT and had the BT Home Hub plugged into a Netgear Switch and then to the two PC's.

I have just changed to Virgin Media Cable (20 Meg...:cool: ) and moved my Ubuntu to a different room at the same time. When I plugged everything in, the Ubuntu PC worked just fine but the XP machine would not connect to the internet. I thought that in my moving I might have bent an ethernet cable too much and broken a wire (I have run ethernet all over the house) and so spent a good few hours re doing it (under crawl spaces and in the roof etc.....).

I turned on the XP machine and again it would not connect so I have carried it up to the office and plugged it into the switch with a short ethernet cable. You may have guessed where this is going - it does not work!

I have read somewhere that the Virgin modem will not allow you to share a connection (it only has one ethernet port too). Before I go out and buy a router to replace the switch, is there any way of me testing the set up any further?

Also, is a router what I need to replace the switch?

LaRoza
April 18th, 2008, 06:26 PM
You need a router for multiple connections.

A switch will work from a router.

mips
April 18th, 2008, 06:28 PM
I cant see why it would not work unless they only allow one mac address per modem. One way to sort this out would be to put a router between the modem and the pc's, this way virgin will only see the mac address of the router and not those of the computers connected to the router.

tigerplug
April 18th, 2008, 07:17 PM
You need something to allocate IP addresses... or set the IP addresses manually.

You could use a spare box if you have it?

rickyjones
April 18th, 2008, 08:38 PM
Also, is a router what I need to replace the switch?

Yup. Just buy a basic broadband cable/dsl router. I recommend the Linksys WRT54GL.

-Richard

Twizzle
April 18th, 2008, 08:42 PM
I do have a spare box that I was going to set up as a server. The only thing stopping me is the cost of leaving it on 24 /7 (it is not really needed but more of a hobby thing - I want to learn how to do more like that!).

I guess I would need an extra ethernet card in it (or multiple to connect more computers). I also guess that it would be a bit of an overkill and harder to set up that a simple router?

If I do go down the router path, are there any that are non Ubuntu friendly that I should avoid? I assume that as I just want to connect via ethernet, they should all be fine.

*** Rickyjones, you wrote as I did! Thanks for the suggestion***