Next Question - Gateway PC or ADSL Modem/Router

Ok from my previous question it looks like Plusnet is the way to go -
interesting that no-one using Zen replied!

Anyway next question. At present I am on BT satellite but will be changing
to ADSL as my exchange is going to be enabled soon.

The satellite feed goes from the Sat Modem into one NIC on a computer
running Windows XP. This sits it the corner of the room with no monitor,
keyboard or mouse. A second NIC is connected to a hub and I use ICS to
server the rest of the PCs. I have a wireless access point so my PDA and
Notebook share the internet connection as well.

Here is the question. I could buy an ADSL modem and plug it into the gateway
PC or I could do away with the gateway PC and buy an Wireless ADSL
Modem/Router. Which from peoples experience would be better?

On 17 Oct 2003, "Kimball K Kinnison" <nospam@(nospam)yahoo.com> wrote:

>I could buy an ADSL modem and plug it into the gateway PC or I
>could do away with the gateway PC and buy an Wireless ADSL
>Modem/Router. Which from peoples experience would be better?

Under 50 quid would get you a router to connect to the XP PC,
or half that for a PCI card. I think the sky's the limit for
wireless (OK, at least double), and your existing setup works
so minimum change connecting just that PC to your ADSL line...

Kimball K Kinnison wrote:

> Here is the question. I could buy an ADSL modem and plug it into the gateway
> PC or I could do away with the gateway PC and buy an Wireless ADSL
> Modem/Router. Which from peoples experience would be better?

Since you already have the wireless access point you won't need a ADSL
router with built in wireless.

Hence my suggestion would be to replace the XP PC with a straight
forward ADSL Router with built in firewall etc.


--
Cheers,

John.

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| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
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| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
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On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 11:21:00 +0100, Kimball K Kinnison <yahoo.com> wrote:
> At present I am on BT satellite but will be changing
> to ADSL as my exchange is going to be enabled soon.
>
> The satellite feed goes from the Sat Modem into one NIC on a computer
> running Windows XP. This sits it the corner of the room with no monitor,
> keyboard or mouse. A second NIC is connected to a hub and I use ICS to
> server the rest of the PCs. I have a wireless access point so my PDA and
> Notebook share the internet connection as well.
>
> Here is the question. I could buy an ADSL modem and plug it into the
> gateway
> PC or I could do away with the gateway PC and buy an Wireless ADSL
> Modem/Router. Which from peoples experience would be better?

I use a gateway computer.
My personal choise was to use an old computer with a 1Gb drive running at
400MHz.
I found mine in a skip, but places such as car boot sales & eBay will do
just as well.
It produces little heat & noise compared to my modern computers so I leave
it running all the time.
I've bought ZoneAlarmPro to use as a firewall & use Apache as a webserver.
I found this guide:
http://www.methinks.co.uk/howto/linu...ter-howto.html
... and I'm in the process of changing to a Linux based firewall and
webserver.

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, PapaLazarus
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 11:21:00 +0100, Kimball K Kinnison <yahoo.com> wrote:
>I use a gateway computer.
>My personal choise was to use an old computer with a 1Gb drive running at
>400MHz.

Heavens , that's faster than my _main_ machine !
(what's the address of your dustbin!)

>I found mine in a skip, but places such as car boot sales & eBay will do
>just as well.
>It produces little heat & noise compared to my modern computers so I leave
>it running all the time.
>I've bought ZoneAlarmPro to use as a firewall & use Apache as a webserver.
>I found this guide:
>http://www.methinks.co.uk/howto/linu...ter-howto.html
>.. and I'm in the process of changing to a Linux based firewall and
>webserver.

well, for comparison, I'm a month in to happily running Smoothwall 1.0
on a dedicated K5-75 with 16MB RAM and a 125MB hard-disk. That's driving
a standard Alcatel 330 USB modem on the red side and a 3COM 900 NIC on
the green. The network is 10base2 (almost) all around the house.

As I reported earlier, I've not seen 'top' show more than 25% cpu usage,
and at least half of that, and most of the memory, is the Snort
Intrusion Detection System (there's a joke hiding somewhere in those
initials???)
Bob
--
robert w hall