Is TCP/IP communication universal?

[UncleRonin]

One question: can any two PC's on any platform communicate using TCP/IP?

The reason I'm asking is because I want to communicate (through TCP/IP) between a PC using linux and a PC using Windows (XP most of the time). In theory it should work? Or does it depend on how the packets are sent/received between the PC's or how the packets are formatted? (But since TCP/IP is a standardised protocol they should all be the same?).

I'm guessing that at low-level they can communicate without any problems but that this level isn't visible. That rather, we can can only see high-level and only use what ever controls and components are available, and that these high-level ctrls/comps are what may cause difficulty (since they don't provide any modification)?

*scratch* Is it possible? Does anyone have any ideas on the subject? Any information that can be provided would be really useful.

 

[UncleRonin]

Bleh... well, since nobody's bothered to reply I'll post what I've learned... In so far as I've experienced (Mainly between Linux and Windows) any two PC's can communicate through TCP/IP. Using the System.Net.Sockets namespace it's actually really easy... no special software is needed on either side (unless there's one I don't know about). It's exactly the same as communicating between two Windows PC's. Every communication there was a header error but all the packets went through successfully without any problems.

In short TCP/IP is God's gift to programmers because it's universality is F***ing awesome! (is universality a word? *goes to google it* did you know that the verb 'google' is in the dictionary? go figure)

 

[JohnH]

You're right the Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol is very versatile, check out this marvellous overview of possibilities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite