You can set up your own local area network (LAN) yourself, for example to connect your laptop to your desktop machine. As opposed to client/server environments, as typically used in company networks, this frequently referred to as "peer networking" because really every computer can act as either a server or client or both.

&os2; comes with the "File and Print Client", which allows each system to provide some server functionality such as sharing resources as well.

In order to build a LAN at your home, you need to do the following:

  1. Each computer that should be part of the network must have a network interface card (NIC), a piece of hardware that allows you to plug several computers together.

  2. If you have only two computers with network cards, you can plug them together directly. If you have more than two computers, you will need additional hardware such as hubs or switches.

  3. All computers in the LAN must support the same network protocol. In most cases, &link_netbios; is the best choice for LANs.

  4. The computers that are supposed to share resources (files and printers) must have the peer services running that export these to the LAN.