I want to make a Lan with 3 friends.What is the best option??

Question

I want to make a Lan with 2 friends.All of us have laptop with bluetooth,ethernet cable port,infrared(and anything else a new laptop has as wifi).I dont want to buy a router.I want the chipest solution and details on how i will set every parametre of the Lan so that it will work properly.If i dont understand something i will tell it here for more explanations.We want to make Lan so that we will be able to play with each other.

Yes the OS is Xp

Answer 1

Well let me just say this...if you dont want a router, then how about a 4 port hub? These cost $10 is the retail stores.

You need some way of physically hooking everyone up together. That is by definition what a LAN is. If each computer has only 1 ethernet port, the most you can hook up will be 2 computers using a crossover cable.

Forget the wireless, as you will need an access point (built into a router) in order to serve them

You didnt state your OS, but if XP, your ONLY other alternative is to connect via a bunch of USB crossover cables, and I really doubt that will work for more than 2 computers. Its not meant to work that way.

Get a $10 4-port hub. You all cable to it and turn on windows networking. If you need to communicate via IP, you will need to specify a unique address (using the same subnet) in each computer on the ethernet adapter. I suggest the standard 192.168.0.1 through 4. Each needs a mask of 255.255.255.0

Answer 2

Use a hub and configure all of your computer with static IP addresses.
A used hub on eBay starts at $5
Just give each a unique IP and computer name.
Example:
Computer1 (IP) 192.168.1.2
Computer2 (IP) 192.168.1.3
Computer3 (IP) 192.168.1.4
Leave 192.168.1.1 in case you install a router.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/230151