Tuesday, February 24, 2004, 12:54:16 PM, you wrote: > What I use the 2 old 486 laptop for are simple tasks. If I am > working on a computer that has some thing wrong with it, or working > with new applications, OS as I am doing now. Instead of printing > the instruction or documentation. I display the instruction (text > or HTML files) on the laptop wile working on another computer. > Saves paper, ink, and time. One of the old 486 has a port > replicator that enables me to set up network connection. So having > it networked with our new computers all it should have to do is > display what I need. Step daughter use the other 486 laptop, as a > simple text editor. She likes to sit outside on nice days and work > on her home work. Mostly just taking notes wile reading books. > Saves it to disk then uses new computer to format text, email it, > and or print.
> I have a Pentium 1 100 MHz desk top I want to use for firewall, > router. Install two NIC cards eth0 would connect to DSL modem. Then > eth0 bridged to eth1 connected to a hub that provides wired and > wireless networking for all of our other computers. I am thinking > that after installing Linux and setting up network on this computer > it would not need a monitor. As it would be administered remotely > by another computer on the network. > This hub that I was looking at in one of our local stores, shows the > DSL modem connected to it. This hub then provides wired and > wireless connection to other computers. With this arrangement I > would not need the Pentium 1 100 MHz desk top. But then I believe > that this would not provide the security I want. Hi Ray, I couldn't help but butt in and comment that an old pentium-based PC with Slackware, or Mandrake (minus X), or perhaps IP Cop (??) will allow you to have all the security you want/could need. In my experience of hardware routers (Vigor 2600We and IX66) the stateful firewalls, even on an IX66 which is VERY capable, always lack the configuration options I need! I could never get the IX66 to be transparent to my file sharing software, whereas with IPTABLES in Linux I can. This stuff is fast as it is actually built into the kernel and easy to configure as you can set up the filters, etc. from the command line/bash scripts. You can't do as much QOS stuff which is really useful. I can configure my Linux-based DHCP server much more than I could a hardware router (e.g. assign Wins/netbios information for Winblows). Where Linux falls over is drivers for wireless cards - that is a bit of a nightmare (of course some are supported). Why do manufacturers write network hardware drivers for Windblows and not Linux? Try to get Windows to act as server is like trying wade through treacle... :-) I had great fun getting a conexant PCI ADSL modem driver to work with Linux. Its handy though because it means I can do NAT on the Linux box and not have to worry about an external modem doing something stupid (or not being able to find the modem web configuration page)... You can easily configure the Linux box using SSH. Who needs fancy web config pages :-) If you do you could always use IP Cop... Don't bother with hardware routers, a Linux box and cheap hardware SWITCH (netgear are really nice) is a more powerfull combo and its more efficient... -- Best regards, Robert mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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