Question about LAN w/ Linux and Windows (router, switch, other?)

[cleb]

Recently I held a LAN party where my three friends had Windows and I was running Ubuntu 18.04 with games running both natively through steam and some through other means w/ Wine. Now at home I was able to connect to my brothers computers just fine VIA the LAN option on games without any issue. At the LAN this was not the case and I couldn’t connect to them at all. When I ran into problems connecting to the Windows PCs at the LAN I found this solution: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/251057/can-i-connect-a-ubuntu-linux-laptop-to-a-windows-10-laptop-via-ethernet-cable

Now the solution worked fine I suppose but I realized that the only difference I could find between at my house and at the LAN is that at home we have a router/modem connectioning us and at the LAN we just had an unmanaged switch. 

So I guess my questions comes down to this: Was having a router that actively managed connections the reason I had no issues at home and if so would it be possible to configure my switch and a router together so that I can have as many connections as I need plugged into the switch and not have to be concerned with the operating systems I’m using as long as the games match up?

PS: I’m sorry for the run around and lack of understanding of networking, my specialty has always been computer surgery not OS or networking. 

[mynameisjuan]

This has nothing to do with the switch. It all depends on in what address DHCP gave you, it there was one. 

[Windows7ge]

What you did is you assigned yourself a static IP. Windows has it's own protocol when when you create a LAN of machines with no router they can give themselves IP addresses that let them intercommunicate (even if they didn't do this on their own you could set it up manually like you just did for linux). The only difference is here that Linux isn't compatible with the IP negotiations windows will do between clients when a DHCP server is absent so you had to set it up yourself.

[cleb]

22 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

What you did is you assigned yourself a static IP. Windows has it's own protocol when when you create a LAN of machines with no router they can give themselves IP addresses that let them intercommunicate (even if they didn't do this on their own you could set it up manually like you just did for linux). The only difference is here that Linux isn't compatible with the IP negotiations windows will do between clients when a DHCP server is absent so you had to set it up yourself.

Right, that’s more or less what I figured out (without the clean technical understanding). What I’m trying to understand though is how I can bypass that with a router, and physically what that configuration would look like.

[Windows7ge]

3 minutes ago, cleb said:

Right, that’s more or less what I figured out (without the clean technical understanding). What I’m trying to understand though is how I can bypass that with a router, and physically what that configuration would look like.

Re-reading the original post, yes. It's called DHCP and it's enabled by default. It has been made pretty plug'n'play for you just plug a consumer router into the switch and have everyone connect to the switch. From there it doesn't matter the OS so long as DHCP is enabled everyone will get an address and be able to connect to the game.

[cleb]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

Re-reading the original post, yes. It's called DHCP and it's enabled by default. It has been made pretty plug'n'play for you just plug a consumer router into the switch and have everyone connect to the switch. From there it doesn't matter the OS so long as DHCP is enabled everyone will get an address and be able to connect to the game.

Awesome. Thank you for the confirmation, I know it must seem simple but little things can make big difference it seems with this kind of stuff and I didn’t want to be realizing I was over simplifying things.