VDQ : can NetworkManager create a LAN?

[Beartooth]

On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 01:26:47 -0500, John (J5) Palmieri wrote in the
developers' list (where I have no business even asking anything) :

> Network Manager
> 
>  http://people.redhat.com/dcbw/NetworkManager/

I went and looked at that site, and it sounds good; but it uses dbus and
hal, neither of which I ever heard tell of, and I don't even have man
entries for them -- not that I'd likely be able to grasp them if I had
them. Otoh, it's clearly meant to be maximally user-friendly once it's on
a system.

So I have a Very Dumb Question : can NM by any chance be used to *create*
a LAN?

I'm just a self-taught old fart with other priorities, but I'll soon have
four or five machines running in this house (behind a router; one, maybe,
completely isolated physically from the Net, which I suppose means no
router either, and no admission to a LAN). It would be nice to be able to
tell them to talk to one another -- share bookmarks, exchange files, use a
common printserver, and so forth.

At this point, afaict, setting the network up would have a learning curve
I'm not ready to tackle. Someday, the hotshots (Bless their fertile
brains!) will automate the setup process, to where the likes of me need do
no more than at present with installation -- which has improved *vastly*
from my point of view since RH 6.0, where I couldn't do it at all.

The last place I asked (a LUG near me) didn't indicate that day had come
yet -- so I'm still looking and hoping ....

-- 
Beartooth Autodidact, curmudgeonly codger learning linux
Remember I know precious little of what I'm talking about!