Building a router

After doing a clearout, I noticed I had enough bits to make a router PC.

PII 400Mhz,
Gigabyte motherboard,
64Mb RAM PC66
2x 10/100 LAN (3com and CNET)
1Mb ISA card, or 2mb PCI
Hard drives that I found spare:
CDROM drive 16x
250Mb, 1GB, 4.3Gb, 8GB

I would love to use the 250Mb hard drive in this setup.

For the setup, I would be using an ADSL PCI modem which has linux drivers.
The modem is made by www.amigo.com.tw

Then I would have a patch cable running to my wired/wireless switch, which
the other PCs on my network would use. I have 3 other PCs on the network,
one connects via a 25m patch cable, and the other 2 are wireless.

Reason being that I dont want to leave my main PC on all the time. I shoud
have bought a wired/wirless router with an ADSL modem built in, but I didnt
think of that.

Also probably would have been cheaper in the long term, Imagine how much
money I am paying by running a 400 watt PC. To be honest when the PC is idle
I'd probably say theres about 200W being consumed. I'd make a saving by
going for a built in adsl router, but I just want to dabble in a bit of
networking for now.

TIA

Aosmosis wrote:
> After doing a clearout, I noticed I had enough bits to make a router PC.
>
> PII 400Mhz,
> Gigabyte motherboard,
> 64Mb RAM PC66
> 2x 10/100 LAN (3com and CNET)
> 1Mb ISA card, or 2mb PCI
> Hard drives that I found spare:
> CDROM drive 16x
> 250Mb, 1GB, 4.3Gb, 8GB
>
> I would love to use the 250Mb hard drive in this setup.
>
> For the setup, I would be using an ADSL PCI modem which has linux drivers.
> The modem is made by www.amigo.com.tw
>
> Then I would have a patch cable running to my wired/wireless switch, which
> the other PCs on my network would use. I have 3 other PCs on the network,
> one connects via a 25m patch cable, and the other 2 are wireless.
>
> Reason being that I dont want to leave my main PC on all the time. I shoud
> have bought a wired/wirless router with an ADSL modem built in, but I didnt
> think of that.
>
> Also probably would have been cheaper in the long term, Imagine how much
> money I am paying by running a 400 watt PC. To be honest when the PC is idle
> I'd probably say theres about 200W being consumed. I'd make a saving by
> going for a built in adsl router, but I just want to dabble in a bit of
> networking for now.
>
> TIA
^^^
Errr ... the above implies you meant to ask a question ...

--
...

I am not a marketing target ... I am a free man.

"Martin Slaney" <(E-Mail Removed)_SPAMpipex.com> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Aosmosis wrote:
>> After doing a clearout, I noticed I had enough bits to make a router PC.
>>
>> PII 400Mhz,
>> Gigabyte motherboard,
>> 64Mb RAM PC66
>> 2x 10/100 LAN (3com and CNET)
>> 1Mb ISA card, or 2mb PCI
>> Hard drives that I found spare:
>> CDROM drive 16x
>> 250Mb, 1GB, 4.3Gb, 8GB
>>
>> I would love to use the 250Mb hard drive in this setup.
>>
>> For the setup, I would be using an ADSL PCI modem which has linux
>> drivers. The modem is made by www.amigo.com.tw
>>
>> Then I would have a patch cable running to my wired/wireless switch,
>> which the other PCs on my network would use. I have 3 other PCs on the
>> network, one connects via a 25m patch cable, and the other 2 are
>> wireless.
>>
>> Reason being that I dont want to leave my main PC on all the time. I
>> shoud have bought a wired/wirless router with an ADSL modem built in, but
>> I didnt think of that.
>>
>> Also probably would have been cheaper in the long term, Imagine how much
>> money I am paying by running a 400 watt PC. To be honest when the PC is
>> idle I'd probably say theres about 200W being consumed. I'd make a saving
>> by going for a built in adsl router, but I just want to dabble in a bit
>> of networking for now.
>>
>> TIA
> ^^^
> Errr ... the above implies you meant to ask a question ...
>
> --
> ..
>
> I am not a marketing target ... I am a free man.

LOL well noticed,

Does anyone know what linux distro would be the best for a complete novice?

Aosmosis wrote:
> "Martin Slaney" <(E-Mail Removed)_SPAMpipex.com> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Aosmosis wrote:
>>> After doing a clearout, I noticed I had enough bits to make a
>>> router PC. PII 400Mhz,
>>> Gigabyte motherboard,
>>> 64Mb RAM PC66
>>> 2x 10/100 LAN (3com and CNET)
>>> 1Mb ISA card, or 2mb PCI
>>> Hard drives that I found spare:
>>> CDROM drive 16x
>>> 250Mb, 1GB, 4.3Gb, 8GB
>>>
>>> I would love to use the 250Mb hard drive in this setup.
>>>
>>> For the setup, I would be using an ADSL PCI modem which has linux
>>> drivers. The modem is made by www.amigo.com.tw
>>>
>>> Then I would have a patch cable running to my wired/wireless switch,
>>> which the other PCs on my network would use. I have 3 other PCs on
>>> the network, one connects via a 25m patch cable, and the other 2 are
>>> wireless.
>>>
>>> Reason being that I dont want to leave my main PC on all the time. I
>>> shoud have bought a wired/wirless router with an ADSL modem built
>>> in, but I didnt think of that.
>>>
>>> Also probably would have been cheaper in the long term, Imagine how
>>> much money I am paying by running a 400 watt PC. To be honest when
>>> the PC is idle I'd probably say theres about 200W being consumed.
>>> I'd make a saving by going for a built in adsl router, but I just
>>> want to dabble in a bit of networking for now.
>>>
>>> TIA
>> ^^^
>> Errr ... the above implies you meant to ask a question ...
>>
>> --
>> ..
>>
>> I am not a marketing target ... I am a free man.
>
> LOL well noticed,
>
> Does anyone know what linux distro would be the best for a complete
> novice?

I suggest you take a look at Mandrake 10.1 official. It comes with a choice
of Windows managers to choose from, so if the default KDE is too much for
your 64Mb RAM, you could try something else.

Martin

Aosmosis, IPcop is a very good Linux based router http://www.ipcop.org/


Glenn

In message <41d2c9ef$0$891$(E-Mail Removed)>, Aosmosis
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes


>Does anyone know what linux distro would be the best for a complete novice?

You can either choose a general-purpose Linux distro or a dedicated
firewall/proxy system. I would recommend the latter, Smoothwall or
IPCop.


--
Bernard Peek
London, UK. DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author. Will work for money.

Aosmosis wrote:

> "Martin Slaney" <(E-Mail Removed)_SPAMpipex.com> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>>Aosmosis wrote:
>>
>>>After doing a clearout, I noticed I had enough bits to make a router PC.

>>
>> ^^^
>>Errr ... the above implies you meant to ask a question ...
>>
>>--
>>..
>>
>>I am not a marketing target ... I am a free man.
>
>
> LOL well noticed,
>
> Does anyone know what linux distro would be the best for a complete novice?

I use Smoothwall (www.smoothwall.org) - which is a highly stripped-down
dedicated NAT router/gateway/firewall solution .... has worked very well
for me for 2.5 years .... someone else mentioned IPCop - a similar thing.

But these are not really what you want if you also want to "futz around"
with Linux.

Generally people use SFF-type boxes for this - cuts down on power
consumption, noise etc.

There are some advantages over yer 60 quid router/firewall/switch
gizmo's, but not really much price advantage if you take into account
power consumption etc.

--
...

I am not a marketing target ... I am a free man.

Bernard Peek <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in news:(E-Mail Removed):

> You can either choose a general-purpose Linux distro or a dedicated
> firewall/proxy system. I would recommend the latter, Smoothwall or
> IPCop.

If you go for a dedicated distro (which I would recommend), you could also
take a peek at these two:
<http://www.clarkconnect.com/info/index.html>
<http://contribs.org/modules/news/>

--
treeherder.co.uk (marcus)

Any reference to trees or their herding is purely coincidental.

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 15:57:09 +0000, Martin Slaney
<(E-Mail Removed)_SPAMpipex.com> strung together this:

>I use Smoothwall (www.smoothwall.org) - which is a highly stripped-down
>dedicated NAT router/gateway/firewall solution .... has worked very well
>for me for 2.5 years .... someone else mentioned IPCop - a similar thing.
>
Just to be different, I'd recommend IPCop. I've been running it for 12
months without a hitch.

>But these are not really what you want if you also want to "futz around"
>with Linux.
>
That's what I thought when I looked into it originally, but there is a
certain amount of CLI stuff you can do that isn't configurable from
the web interface.

I use the IPCop box as the firewall and also run Linux on another
machine for "futzing" around on it. I wouldn't recommend using your
firewall as a practice machine.
--

SJW
Please reply to group or use 'usenet' in email subject

> PII 400Mhz,
> Gigabyte motherboard,
> 64Mb RAM PC66
> 2x 10/100 LAN (3com and CNET)
> 1Mb ISA card, or 2mb PCI

Base on easiest driver support.

> Hard drives that I found spare:
> CDROM drive 16x

Unplug after installing the O/S?

> 250Mb, 1GB, 4.3Gb, 8GB

1) PC will probably draw less than 60W
---- PSU efficiency will be only ~60%
---- however your loadavg will be tiny
---- a 150W SFF PSU may have better efficiency
2) You could sell the components & buy a router
---- might actually work out better re running cost

Firewall's (re NAT Router) are best kept "minimalist"
in terms of 1 service running re risks, vulnerability.
That said, Linux is easier to maintain re security.

3) even 250MB is overkill
---- floppy, USB drive or Flash IDE are sufficient

The board might allow underclocking re power saved.
Some Linux distros & router/firewall fit on a 3.5" floppy.
--
Dorothy Bradbury
www.dorothybradbury.co.uk for quiet Panaflo fans