OS/networking question

Me | FatherTorque

[FatherTorque]

I've been here going on 4 years and this is my first vanity post, so the thread police can keep their guns holstered.  I need a bit of computer help, I'm going to upgrade and need to know the pros and cons of a few things.

What I have now is:

My computer is a 700 hz Athlon, 512 ram, cd writer, geforce 1, and soundblaster live, I surf and game quite a bit.  My wife's computer is a little 300 hz emachine, nothing special, but all she uses it for is email and surfing the net.  Windows 2000 is installed on both of them.

I've got cable internet hooked to my computer and I'm using Intel Anypoint USB 10mbps phoneline adapter to network to hers.

OS's I have on hand.  Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000. 

The new one I plan on getting will not have windows XP on it, I'll be going back with 2000.  I do want a version of Linux on it as well to try it out.  What's the best way to go about this?  Partition one drive, or get dual drives and put each OS on it's own drive?  Recommendations as to the best flavor of Linux to use?  I'll be getting another AMD chip as well, if that makes a difference.

The Anypoint is a pain, because my computer has to be on all the time for hers to have internet access.  I just didn't want to run the cat5 at the time.  I want to change to either a router or use one of our computers as a server.  Anybody have a preference either way?  If I go the server route, what software would I want to be running on it, and which one of our older computers should I use as the server?  If you think the router is a better idea, do you have a preference as to which one to buy?  Keep in mind I'll be running Windows and Linux on mine and will need internet access with both OS's.

Stability and ease of use are the main features I'm looking for.  I travel quite a bit with work, and when my wife has computer/networking problems it's hard to troubleshoot them over the phone.

[atafak]

The limitation to small cylinder numbers for a boot partition is ancient history.

[Cultural Jihad]

Let us know how it goes. I'd second the recommendation of Alkaloid and use a separate PC for Linux rather than dual boot with Windows2000, but you may have better luck.

[1John]

You are probably right. I had envisioned a guy in an apartment building selling internet access to his neighbors. That's why I was asking what the difference would be between a server and a router.

[Bogey78O]

well if his wifes computer was a fifth of it's current speed the electricity powering it would be cycling faster.

[atafak]

As memory has it, my cable contract also forbids feeding any other premises from my hookup, but routing to different computers on my premises is allowed. I'm sure though that many apartment dwellers work out arrangements with their neighbors to share costs on a cable hookup.

[FatherTorque]

Near as I can tell the consensus is, a router/2 network cards instead of using a PC as a server.  Then go with separate bootable HD for each OS installed. 

That'll be easy enough.  I've got enough HD's laying around here, I'll just have to get the router and the net cards and route the cat5.  I figure then 3 HD's on the new computer, one each for 2000 and Linux, and then one large one to put programs, mp3's etc.  This should come in handy as well when I have to do my semi-annual windows erase and reinstall.  I'll just use little <2 gig HD's for the OS's.

I went and looked at the Linksys routers, I notice they have USB ones as well.  Are these better,  worse, the same, as the regular ones?  I know you could save not having to deal with the net cards, but wondered if it had drawbacks elsewhere?

[1John]

Ya got that right. There's always an entrepeneur in every crowd.

[2111USMC]

I have limited experience in USB. Unfortunately, what experience I do have, is that it can be a pain in the butt just to set up a printer utilizing USB.

Netgear sells 10/100 MHZ network cards for about $20 each. Simple to install and universal.

The only reason I'm partial to Netgear is that it is the only home networking equipment I am familiar with. I'm sure that the other products mentioned are probably just as good.

However, one thing that I forgot to mention in my original post, my Netgear router came standard with a very good firewall built-in. Third party tests have proven our system to be quite secure.

Good luck and HAVE FUN!!

[2111USMC]

BTW Father Torque, not sure why, but I glanced at your home page.

You've got some neat toys!!! Is that a .50 caliber?

Some guys get all the luck!!!!!!!

[FatherTorque]

Yeh, that's my .50, and it wasn't luck. Just a lot of kissing up, and she got to buy a whole bunch of stuff to get even. :)

[evolved_rage]

My two cents...consider a print server too. I just got a $100 netgear ps110, and any of the pcs on my dsl router or hub can print via ip, and I don't have to boot a second pc to print. the thing uses about 7 watts...smc has a print server/dsl router combo.

[George Smiley]

Keep me posted.

I got a home machine (90MHz Pentium antique) set up to dual boot either NT 4.0 or Linux Mandrake, and it wasn't easy.

I haven't tried anything dual with any of the other Redmondian abominations, so I can't really advise you wrt what to do.

[AppyPappy]

most people running multiple os's today use removeable hard drives--you just pop one in, and pop it out.

Say what? Ever heard of grb/LILO/Windows Boot Manager?

[tacticalogic]

What's a good motherboard for a 7- 800 mhz AMD chip? I want to do a cheap upgrade from my ASUS p5.

I believe the SOYO SY-K7V would be a good choice.

[tacticalogic]

If you're going to do any file or print sharing between the computers, I recommend using NETBEUI for that instead of TCP/IP. This keeps your file and print shares insulated from the internet. You can install and run both protocols, just make sure you disable NetBT, and only bind NETBEUI to the Microsoft Networking components.

[mrsmith]

Thanks! Looking up info on that mb led me to just the kinds I want (maybe asus a7v).
Now it's just a matter of what's available.

[tacticalogic]

I usually check pricewatch.com for cost/availability.

[FatherTorque]

Thanks to all of you who responed on this thread. I finally finished up everything these past couple of days. For those of you who are interested, here's the particulars.

I went with the Asus A7V266-E motherboard with raid controller. 1.53 gighz Athlon XP processor with 512 mb of DDR ram and dual 20 gig HD's for the raid array. Added a GeForce 3 vid card and the removable HD trays to swap the OS hard drives in and out. Got the Netgear router and NIC cards and routed the cat5.

Overall it wasn't too bad. The Netgear router and cards were a snap to get up and running. After they were connected I had internet access in less than 5 minutes. On the plus side when I check my system security at the "Shields Up" website, I'm much better off now than when I was just running Black Ice Defender. It's certainly much better than dealing with the Intel Anypoint stuff I had before.

I have windows 2000 on a 12 gig removeable HD and I installed Mandrake Linux 8.1 on another 5 gig removeable HD. Mandrake was a piece of cake to install. It took care of pretty much everything, it recognized my Geforce 3 as well as my Soundblaster Live and even the raid array.

I'm still trying to feel my way around Linux, if anybody has a simple cheat sheet to help with file extensions and such I'd appreciate a copy. One other quick question I have about Linux. I'm using it right now to type this, but it doesn't automatically hook me to the net when I boot into it. I have to go into the control center and connect their every time I boot up. If anybody has a quick fix for this I'd appreciate that too.

So thanks for all the help and recommendations. They made this upgrade very smooth and I'm very pleased with the results.

[ChadGore]

No matter the question, that answer is Linux.

The ultimate windows service pack