how to connect two PC's with a cross-over ethernet cable?

[Bram Mertens <bram-mertens@linux.be>]

Hi

At the moment I have configured both my desktop (still running SuSE 8.2
Pro) and my laptop (running Debian testing) to be able to connect to the
internet using ppp (DSL).

When I need to transfer files between the two computers I either use a
CD-RW or copy the files to an FTP-server and download them again.  Both
these methods are slow and inefficient.

I have a cross-over ethernet-cable and I would like to be able to
configure both computers so I can switch between the current setup and
the necessary configuration to transfer files across the cross-over
ethernet cable.

How do I know which files contain the current configuration?
How do I configure my laptop to be able to use the cross-over
connection?

I know that getting a router has many benefits over this setup but I am
still considering some alternatives and I would like to set this up
until I make up my mind.

I hope I make myself clear, if there are any details I left out I'm
happy to provide further info.

TIA
Bram 
-- 
# Mertens Bram "M8ram"   <bram-mertens@linux.be>   Linux User #349737 #
# SuSE Linux 8.2 (i586)     kernel 2.4.20-4GB      i686     512MB RAM #
# 10:54am  up 14 days  0:44,  10 users,  load average: 0.02, 0.13, 0.11 #