Can anyone help - I'm having terrible home networking problems. Currently I have a desktop system which is running on Suse 10.1 which is (finally) wifi enabled. I also have a dual boot laptop (XP and Suse 10.1) which is similarly WiFi enabled. I am trying to access a huge zipped file which is contained on a LaCie external ethernet hard drive. Now the USB connection for this device is no longer workable so I am left with two options for connectivity (as I see it), either connecting the drive to either the laptop or the desktop directly (I'm guessing via a crossover as opposed to straightthrough ethernet cable), or networking the LaCie hard drive and accessing the data through the home network.

Herein lies the problem. I have an ntl cable modem to which I have a dumb switch attached. Attached to this is an Apple "Air Port" which is acting as our router - thus assigning IP addresses to the three WiFi enabled computers in the house. Unfortunately the LaCie harddrive is not WiFi enabled so cannot be assigned an IP via the Apple router. I have tried to wire things through the dumb switch but this is (as expected) getting me nowhere. I want to avoid spending a further £50 on another wireless router that would also contain ethernet ports...is there a way around this?

I'm a total newbie when it comes to home networking and have never used Samba or any such utils in Suse. I thought that XP may offer a more straightforward option and then I could tfer the file WiFi to my Suse desktop but I just don't know!

Can anyone offer any advice? Please?