Okay, I've gone over to my friends house a couple of times for a little LAN party and I just realized, I don't know how to go about it with Linux. I dual-boot so I can switch, but its bothersome as I have all the games I play installed and running on Linux and this is how I play them at home when I'm on the internet. My connection at home is set up through a router which is connected to the cable modem. I never really had a need to connect to the other computers (both Mac's running OS X) but now I'm getting curious so I'd like to be able to do that too. However, the main problem is, if I plug myself into the hub (for use at the LAN) how do I tell Linux to use the LAN and let me connect to everyone else? We started up WC3, and I wasn't able to see the game my friend was hosting. I'm really not that fluent when it comes to networking, but I'd love to learn, all I know is my computer connects to the internet using DHCP and I'm not too sure what it says as it boots (doesn't show up in dmesg) but I can try and get it if its needed. So, how does one go about connected to other computers for gaming (both Mac and Windows) and how can I connect to my Dad's Mac running OS X? Sorry if this is a rather common question, but I searched and I wasn't able to find anything that could help, please point a networking fool in the right direction .

EDIT: Oh yeah, my internet is through Charter, and I don't have a static IP address. I think that might be important.

what you need to do is have one person setup as a server. then find out what the ip is for that server on the lan. that should be all you need to do.

This is assuming I'm playing a game like ET, UT or CS, where a server needs to be set up. I'm talking mostly about playing Warcraft 3, where someone merely hosts the game and their room should show up in a list. The problem is its not showing up which tells me I'm not connected to the LAN, wherein lies the problem.

check your box then. sometimes you have to flip a switch to set it to LAN.
read the instructions

Well, with the exact same set-up, it works perfect on Windows. Could it be the problem with the whole Windows, Workgroup thing? I dunno, I'm going to a LAN tomorrow, maybe it was just bad luck or something, but should it work since its set up with DHCP? Or do I have to manual configure my IP and what not? It's not a problem, I just want to know what I should do.