Hub or switch?
 

Ok, here's my situation. I currently have four computers in my apartment wired to a four port Linksys router. The problem is, I have another computer in my room I would like to add to the network to access the internet and share files with. So my question is this: would I need a hub or switch to accomplish this? I don't need anything fancy, just something that would enable me to add this computer to the network.

I'm sure someone is going to suggest going wireless but I'd rather not since I had a bad experience with Netgear wireless hardware, thus wiring my whole apartment with cat5. Plus, I'm trying to keep it on the inexpensive side.

Thanks!

A switch would probably be better: hubs are, effectively, repeaters, so you'll get bogged down eventually. Of course, you probably won't even notice it that much; whichever should work. (A hub will definitely be cheaper.)

Are there any main differences between the two?

Another thing I'm wondering about is how to actually use the hub/switch. I hear from a co-worker that in order to use a hub, I would need a second network card to connect to the hub. Is that true?

You can always plug the required computers into the hub/switch and then plug the hub/switch into the router. (You might need a crossover cable to be wired from the hub/switch to the router for this to work.)
In other words, no, you don't need another network card.

As for the differences between the two...
A switch builds a switching table of hosts connected to it. This means that when the switch recieves data from a host, it can look in its switching table to find the port it should send the data out in order to have it properly delivered. A hub, upon recieving data, floods it out all the ports (including the one it came from in most cases), assuming that it will find the right host via a process of elimination.

Thanks for the information, Snowknight. I really hope I don't need to use a cross over cable since I've got a good length of cat5 already stapled down a hall and into my room.

I would strongly recommend that you use a switch, especially if there's going to be heavy LAN traffic. Switches aren't that much more expensive than hubs nowadays.

Exactly. The price difference is minimal, the performance difference is not (Sample Benchmark: LAN gaming. On my 24-port hub my ping is in the 30-ish range, on my 16-port switch my ping never goes above 10).

Just run a regular CAT5 from the router to the switch and in most cases you'll be set - connect other machines to the switch and they'll work just fine. Hasn't failed me yet. Probably it's not PERFECT Network topology, but for home networks there's no reason to go extreme.

Excellent, then a switch it is! Thanks for all your hellp guys, my 'media pc' is coming together nicely now.