Recommendation for a PC enthusiest

N

naddie

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 28, 2009
Messages
65
I've been using a PC since '94, and finally got a MacBook - the white one with the Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz CPU (previous model to the 2.2GHz model now).

I got mine because I was just curious about the Mac, since I've never really used one at any great length. Because of the student discount and the free iPod Touch (which I was able to sell on Craigslist), I thought I came out pretty good for a brand new Mac.

Anyways, can someone recommend me any sites or books that's geared towards PC enthusiasts? I've been tearing my hair out trying to ping Windows PCs by their host names (can only ping by IP in their terminals), there's no "ipconfig" (though there must be a unix equivilent command, right?), and trying to get to windows shares (hidden folders, standard shares, and folders with different required credentials) - just some of the examples of things I'd do in Windows I take for granted that I cannot do so easily in another OS.

I've even been able to get around Ubuntu.

I really want to learn because I already built a hackintosh that is also my Windows 7 gaming rig (using Chamelion bootloader). I just got that new OS butterfly in stomach as I did when I moved from DOS/Windows 3.1 to 95. :)
 
Mmm...why not just load Windows onto it and boot it simultaneously via VMWare Fusion or just via Boot Camp?
 
Ifconfig from terminal will give you the network info.


Can't really give you any books. I'm new to Mac's (Kinda had one in the 90's) But I'm familiar with nix.
 
It's ifconfig instead of ipconfig. Ping is still the same, but it does a ping -t by default so you have to press CONTROL+C to cancel it once it's going.

If you want to get into Windows Shares the authentication works the same way. Pull up finder and (which can be done by clicking on a random blank space on your desktop) and click 'Go'>'Connect to server' and type in your SMB: hostname. OSX doesn't use UNC paths, so you'll have to type this smb://<hostname/ip>.
 
Use the command
Code: 
ping -c xx hostname
where xx is a number and hostname is the Bonjour name of the other computer.

I find networking in Snow Leopard/Leopard to be vastly superior to Windows because of the way computers are listed at the side of the Finder window. If you want to connect to a Windows share, just choose the computer on the left, then choose Connect As from the top right. From there you can enter your credentials and browse files.
 
adventurous said:
Mmm...why not just load Windows onto it and boot it simultaneously via VMWare Fusion or just via Boot Camp?
Click to expand...

I already do in fact do this. I have both BootCamped Windows 7 Pro (MAK), and Sun VirtualBox Win7 Pro (MAK) (yeah, I hate using two licenses for one machine). But that's not the point. The point is I want to know how to do things on the Mac's native OS. Much like how if I use Linux, I want to be able to use it without having to boot into Windows.

Thanks everyone for the tips. I forgot about ifconfig. :) Ping does not work for me though - it works when I ping IP addresses, but not by Windows host names. DHCP is provided by my Linksys router, and all Windows machines are able to ping each other by host name.

Conversely, I don't know my Mac's host name for me to try the other way around (Windows PC pinging the Mac). I can only ping the Mac from a PC only via IP as well.

Also, I am not familiar with Bonjour. Panic, can you specify what those xx numbers are for?
 
Windows host names and DNS names are not always the same. Is this in your home or in a work environment
 
It doesn't work in either my home network or work network.

I understand that Windows host and DNS are different - NetBIOS vs DNS, correct? I'm not a network expert though. :(

I thought that Microsoft is trying to stop using netbios, and move on to DNS to resolve host names. Oh how I wish that's true.

Can someone explain to me Bonjour though? Is this like uPnP, or netbios, but for Macs?
 
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