Cross-Platform LAN-Party 101 Guide

This guide aims at putting you into the position of conducting a LAN party at home. Contrary to what one might think a successful cross-platform LAN-party needs some preparation or it might end up in a horrible mess. We assume that the reader has some knowledge about their operating system, i.e. Windows, Linux or Mac OS X.
The exact commands you need to do may differ slightly depending on your distro or OS version. Since this is a practical guide we will go through the topic systematically by splitting it up into a preparatory part (i.e. what you need to do before your guests come), a carry-it-out part (i.e. what to do when your guests are there) and a troubleshooting part (i.e. what you should do if something doesn’t work out-of-the-box).

Note: This guide will probably be extended each time the author is hosting another LAN party, especially the troubleshooting section