Basic airport questions

[oxfordian3]

I am a total novice at local area networking and wireless, so I have some basic questions.

I have a broadband cable hookup to the Internet for my G4 running OS X (10.3.7). I'd like to share the internet access with a PeoplePC running Windows ME through a wireless connection. Is that feasible and what kind of hardware and software should I be looking for? I have no Airport Base Station as yet, and no wireless equipment on the PC as yet.

BR

 

[Lacero]

You can buy a router. I have the Linksys WRTG45 wireless router that allows you to share an internet connection among many users. The router will create a local area network with the IP address of 192.168.1.xxx which each computer will share.

Go into the router's admin setup to set up for basic wireless settings, plus firewall settings, and WEP encryption.

 

[jsw]

Not only is it possible, but there are a number of ways to go about it.

One possible way to do it is to get a Linksys WRT54G router, into which you can plug your broadband cable modem and your G4 (assuming the G4 doesn't need to be wireless - you can make it wireless as well). Then, you can get anything that will work as a bridge - including the AirPort Express (see my post in this thread for details) and plug an ethernet cable from the PC into the bridge.

Wireless, all external to the computers, no wireless cards which might not be useful on a future Mac/PC.

 

[igucl]

Or... Get an Airport Express. You will have to rig the PC with some sort of wireless card and antenna, which shouldn't be too difficult to find. It's really simple to share the connection between Mac and PC using Airport. I can't speak for other brands because Airport is all I have experience with.

 

[wordmunger]

You might be able to share the Internet connection without buying a router. Just connect your Mac directly to the DSL modem, then activate Internet sharing on the Mac. Not sure how the Windows ME computer would be configured -- obviously you'd need a wireless card for that computer.