deedee E wrote:
I've been cleaning out old stuff. However, my old stuff is really, really old -- for example, I just sent an 8088 to a recycling center. I still have an old computer (i486) running Windows 98 with some legacy Windows and DOS software -- 52Mb of RAM and 4Gb hard disk. I believe, but am not sure, there is one i586 left with 128Mb of RAM and two 6Gb hard drives that I still need to wipe the hard drives before I recycle it. I'll have to look. However, you need to be specific as to the capabilities of the "junk." Some junk is junkier than others, and my junk is particularly junky.
Go to www.distrowatch.com & check the major distributions page (http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major). Down near the bottom there's a list of 'Top 5 Firewalls'. These are cut down Linux systems designed just to perform as a firewall - usually configured through a browser from another machine. The hardware requirements are always pretty low as they're not really doing that much work & there's no fancy X to run. A quick check by me of the top one, Devil-Linux, shows that that'll apparently run on a 486 and doesn't even need a hard drive - although Devil doesn't appear to have the fancy browser front-end that some have. I particularly like the idea of running it with the software on a USB drive, no hard drive, no CD. Minimises the number of moving parts/noise/heat/fans/things-to-break.
As Rick said, only things you'll need in your firewall machine will be a modem and an ethernet card. Then plug that & the other machines into a $20 ethernet hub/switch and you're away.
Rick also mentioned external serial modems. You *may* get away with an internal modem but a lot of the modern ones use chipsets which only do half the "modeming" work - the other half is usually done by a driver in Windows. This causes problems in Linux & they're usually not supported (I seem to remember some support coming along a while back, but stopped watching when I moved to broadband). The bad ones are usually called "WinModems". If you use an external modem then you always get around this problem as they have to do all the "modeming" in the box & then send properly decoded data to the PC. However the older an internal modem is, the more likely it is to be a "full" modem and would then work with Linux OK. Requires a bit of research.
Please do. I believe all of the options people have suggested require I do something along the lines of a little network. And, that means I have some homework to do regardless of the actual method I try. If I still have the i586 and it fits the description of a computer that could do this, that may be the way for me to go.
The simplest option is Derek's suggestion of a crossover ethernet cable between the 2 machines & use the primary for dialling out & share the access. But as Rick pointed out, that means the primary has to be on all the time & the secondary machine loses access when it's rebooted. Also, you can't easily expand the network beyond 2 machines.
Given that you've got a junk machine lying around, the firewall box is probably the best way to go. Only additional hardware would hopefully be a cheap switch/hub. Also gives you the option to easily add more machines at a later date. You could even make the 486 the firewall & then turn the 586 into another user machine with internet access :-)
Jon
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