Copying files between 2 Laptops

[Truckosaurus]

Now then PHers,

I'm being lazy and trying on here rather than google.

I have 5gb worth of photos on one laptop (running Windows XP) and want to copy them to another (running Linux).

What's the easiest/quickest way?

My USB key is only 256mb, so it would take several goes to copy via that, there's a CD burner
on the first laptop, so I could burn off a load of CDs, but that's time consuming.

Is there an easy way of plugging a network cable between them and sending them down that?

[gfwilliams]

just do it with the usb mem stick - or go out and buy a bigger one

[toni896]

you need a cross over cable (cat 5e)
or if they are both on the same network/router, map/mount a drive/network path

Edited by toni896 on Thursday 12th April 16:08

[road2ruin]

By the time you have posted this and messed around with a cable and setting for each machine your USB stick would have been quicker! Even at 256MB

[meeja]

You can get larger ones, but here's a 4gB stick for £32.

www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=4GRR&CategorySelectedId=11152&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11152&InMerch=1

Doddle to transfer all of your porn - sorry - photos from one machine to another....

[ThePassenger]

Cross over cable (turn on Internet connection sharing on the XP unit and set eth0 to DHCP on the Linux one).
memstick (as above).
Burn the whole lot to a DVD (if it's a modernish laptop then it might have a burner).
AdHoc WiFi network (wireless crossover cable in effect, bit iffy never got it to work).

You could get a usb host-host cable and punt usbnet on to the Linux machine and they'll talk to each other that way... fiddly as feck though.

[bigdods]

IF the laptops have bluetooth or IR then just zap the files across. Sounds like they are older laptops, most of them have IR. Ok its damn slow, but if you just set it running and leave for a few hours it will be done.