MB> Go for "combo" cards which can use either coax or 10Base-T 
 MB> cable.  You can save the cost of a concentrator by using coax 
 MB> for a small home network.
Would I want to move to twisted-pair at some point later on?  When?  Why?
 MB> OS/2 Warp Connect comes with IPX/SPX, TCP/IP, and SMB/NetBIOS 
 MB> networking in the box. 
I'm not real clear on what these are.
 MB> OS/2 Peer Services is also included 
Or that.
 MB> with OS/2 Warp Connect, and it allows operating as a peer 
 MB> server which is interoperable with other SMB/NetBIOS/NetBEUI
Or these...
 MB> Linux can use the Samba package for SMB networking, although 
 MB> the current version only supports SMB/NetBIOS over TCP/IP, 
 MB> commonly known as TCPBEUI. 
Again,  I need to understand the terms you're tossing around here.  BTW,  
when you mentioned the Samba package once in another echo some time back,  I 
thought that it would be interesting to pick it up and at least take a look 
at it,  but as many times as I've tried,  the only site I've been able to 
find that has it available for ftp doesn't seem to want to transfer it to me 
-- or there's some problem with the net in between.  Transfer seems to start, 
 stalls,  and it just sits there.  I can go read email,  newsgroups,  etc. 
for half an hour and it's still stuck at the same place when I go back and 
look at it again.
 MB> OS/2 Warp Connect supports this mode directly, but many 
 MB> incarnations of Windows will not.
Hmm,  yet another factor to complicate things...   
 MB> Assuming expense is a concern, 
Always a valid assumption!
 MB> I recommend that you get NE-2000 clone Ethernet cards.  These 
 MB> are cheap and widely supported, although not very fast.  You 
 MB> should get "combo" cards so you can support either coax or 
 MB> 10Base-T cabling, and you should start by using coax until you 
 MB> have more than three or four nodes.  You should look at TCP/IP 
 MB> if Internet connectivity is your paramount concern, or at 
 MB> SMB/NetBIOS if DOS/Windows compatibility is more important.  
Internet connectivity is only a concern in that it's something that I want to 
be able to do once the price comes down to the point where it's realistic for 
me as a non-commercial user can afford some sort of a full-time connection. 
While things seem to be moving in that direction,  albeit slowly,  I'm not 
exactly holding my breath waiting for that to become a reality... 
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