the best way to network to win98

["dez" <dynamix iinet net au>]

Ive been reading all possible nfo on setting up networks and am getting more
confused..................
I have a small home network of 2 win98 machines .
one of the machines has a rack system with 2 hard drives...one is redhat..
one is win98..and i have been switching as necessary.
i would like to able to access the other computer at all times.
Eventually i will get more hardware and not need  a rack system.
however at the moment I need to share a printer from the redhat machine to
the other win98 machine.
what is the best way to go about this?
Both are connected to the internet...i.e both have a modem so ppp sharing
would be nice but not necessary .
any suggestions?
I get confused as to the ip address needed on each machine and the loopback
address ( is it 127.0.0.0 ??? )

 (.......i connect to the internet via an isp whose DNS is
203.0.178.191........)

TIA
dez