<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [...]
> Trouble is that Ethernet anything is a really hot property, especially the
> RJ45 stuff and can't be had for no money.
Did I misunderstand, or didn't those DEC NICs have BNC connectors? If so, no
hub is required. Just Tee connectors for each NIC and a couple of
terminators for the ends (cheap item) -- and of course the appropriate
amount of coax cable. I've seen TONS of this stuff dumped (well, nearly) and
it should be very cheap to come by, especially if you don't mind mooching a
bit. Local Universities are tossing quite a bit of it.
Now, having said that, let me emphasize that I consider coax truly evil to
troubleshoot. If ANYTHING goes wrong ANYWHERE on the segment, you get to
crawl around on your hands and knees moving a terminator from station to
station until suddenly (and hopefully) it all starts to work again. Still, I
did this on my home network -- and more than a few at work -- for many
years.
> It has to be for no money
> because I haven't any money for even my basics of living right now. Also,
> I think I really do need to use a hub to bring the cable modem into the
> equation.
Nice to see the cable modem ranks above the "basics" category now! You will
need SOMETHING. What sort of cable modem do you have? Here in Phoenix, we've
got LANcity units (Cox@Home). They're fine, but they "lock" onto the first
hardware (MAC) address they see. If you stick one on a hub, the first PC it
sees will be the one it locks onto -- sort of like baby geese I suppose.
Unless you're SURE the "right" one is up first, you end up power-cycling the
modem each time. Apparently, the same modem can handle multiple devices (via
the @Home multiple IP addresses for another $6US EACH per month) but being
cheap, I refuse to pay more.
As mentioned elsewhere, a gateway/firewall machine (2 NICs with some sort of
proxy/address translation to make all your individual PCs share a common IP)
is a good way to go.
Keep in mind that you'll need to scrounge up something in any case, be it
hardware or software. Win9x and certainly its predecessors can NOT do this
stuff without extra software of some sort. DOSGate is suppsosed to do this.
Linux sure can, but as you've noted, it can be a bit intimidating at first.
Still, for all the potential it has -- plus the fact that it may yet prove
to be quite the hot commodity in the job market -- makes it something
compelling to check out. You might get your feet wet with one of the
friendlier distributions first, then get serious about the gateway approach.
If you really want to try something DOS based (AHA! SURVPC!) there's
Internet Extender (try http://www.timhiggins.com/ppd/internetextender.htm)
which I know NOTHING about other than it's supposed to work under DOS with
minimal hardware requirements. Just keep in mind that you'll spend a lot of
time learning about packet drivers and DOS software which will be of
absolutely no use in the job market.
> No matter, I'm taking in all the info and continuing to source out
> hardware. when I can get enough parts together I'll put them
> together. I'm a bit shy for space too and reluctant to throw out my bed
> for a bunch of computers.
I saw in another message that you were concerned about running a headless
box (no monitor or keyboard). The options to run with/without keyboard and
pause on errors are usually BIOS settings. If you're on a 486 or later
system, there's a good chance it'll run this way once properly configured. I
set up a P166 firewall for a neighbor using RedHat Linux over a year ago,
and he's yet to call with problems. Apparently, it just sits in the corner
and runs and runs. No keyboard or monitor attached, and it's a nice slim
case, so he has NO IDEA what is going on, other than he has no funny
visitors and the thing is fast at serving his home network via the cable
modem.
On the other hand, you can always sleep on a futon and curl up around a nice
warm CPU at night. Just set your priorities right! :)
Good luck!
- Bob
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