Setting up a Lan or Direct IP network between home computers (Mac and Pc)

[Bob Woodhead]

… lifted from an earlier post of mine…..

SO… something made me think about using Firewire, and after a bit of searching (there aren’t many articles it seems on Firewiring Mac & PC’s), found the answer. It works so well I decided to take the time to let everyone here know. Non-quantified results appear to be much faster than 100Mb lan, as actual transfer speeds through a switch, along with other random network traffic, are quite a bit slower. The firewire is on the 400 bus.

Disclaimer: I’ve no idea about Tiger, it appears there are some who were using Samba/Sharepoints combo on Panther that now have issues on Tiger, and some are OK. Also, this only works w/ WinXP, not 2000, etc.

1] Have Mac-PC sharing working already, preferrably using Sharepoints & Samba via TCP/IP [other methods *may* not work w/ this setup]
2] OSX System Prefs / Network Port Configs – add a New connection, call it whatever, select Built in Firewire. Set IP address to something like 10.0.0.1 Subnet 255.0.0.0, ignore DNS & everything else
3] WinXP: plug the firewire into the Mac. When “New Hardware” wizard appears, just cancel. In Network setup, select the 1394 connection, Properties, TCP/IP settings, set IP to 10.0.0.2 Subnet 255.0.0.0 (same scheme as Mac, natch), close.
4] OK, here’s where it got a bit “grey”… after doing the above it didn’t work right away. So I disconnected ethernet & let the Mac/XP 1394 stay connected, and waited a few minutes. Shortly I was able to use the Finder Connect command to mount a share from 10.0.0.2 (the XP), using same user/pass syntax I use on ethernet connects.
5] plug ethernet back in. I’ve found NO issues so far with anything else being adversely affected. I’ve just got a nice, permanent, 4-10 times faster than before Mac/PC connection for the price of a 1394 cable.

Bob Woodhead / Atlanta
Quantel-Avid-FCP-3D-Crayola
G5 DP 2G, 10.3.4, 3.5GB RAM, FCP 4.5, Aja IO, Huge 320R [raid3]

[David Roth weiss]

Todd,

I just got a MAC G5, my first MAC ever, and I just plugged it into my existing PC network (WinXP) and rebooted. Apparently nowadays they speak easliy, but it wasn’t that way in the past. I’ve got the same MAC working wireless on my network now, and that was easy too.

DRW