I want to network 2 computers over an ethernet crossover cable
what I want from you guys is to point me to a mini HOW-TO for this
box a duel boot linux XP box b linux

well there is no howto for that, as there's nothing special about it. if both machines have ip addresses in the same subnet, and the cable is connected and works, you're done.

thank you for your reply
OK so how do I set up the subnet with out clobering dhcp that provides my internet connection ?
I am almost a complete and total network noob
( the only thing I have done with networking is set up my broadband connection and to do that all I did was load a module and type yes in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf to the question use dhcp eth0 and added search my.isp.net to /etc/resolve.conf)
I get badly lost in the networking 3-4 HOWTO

What do you mean - "how do I set up the subnet"?
For example, give one computer an IP of 192.168.1.1 and the other 192.168.1.2. As far as I'm aware, they are both in the same subnet!

OK now where do those addresses go and what do I use as a broad cast address and what would be the net mask
do I even need a broad cast , gateway or a netmask
a setup as simple as this just isn't covered in the networking HOWTOs I've read
the last time I tried this I clobbered my internet connection and had to restore the backups I made of the files I edited

Where the addresses go depends on your distribution, which you don't specify.

With those IP numbers you should set up a static interface on each machine with Mask 255.255.255.0, Bcast 192.168.1.255, Gateway 192.168.1.254 (last is probably irrelevant).

Yes you will probably clobber your internet settings, unless your distro offers multiple settings on network interfaces. But it sounds like it is not a big problem to restore.

If you have to do this more than once just buy a cheap router. Then you can have all your computers connected to the internet and each other at the same time.

Later edit: OK, if it is slackware the file is probably /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf.

Probably all you need is then:

# Config information for eth0:
IPADDR[0]="192.168.1.1"
NETMASK[0]="255.255.255.0"
USE_DHCP[0]="no"
DHCP_HOSTNAME[0]=""