[Sderby] networking

[David Bottrill]

Mark,

I run a mixed Linux / Windows network at home, which works very well.=20

I have a Dual PIII 450 512MB RAM, server running SuSE 8.0 this runs
Samba and acts as a Primary Domain Controller for my Windows PCs. It is
used for users home drives, shared drives and as a print server. I'm
fortunate as I have a broadband connection which is connected to my
network using a Linksys router.=20

My recommendation would be to use a low spec Pentium box with SmoothWall
www.smoothwall.org as a dial-up router / firewall. If you really want to
play with Win2K server you could always install VMWare on the server and
providing you have enough memory and a fast enough processor you could
run Win2K on top of Linux on the same box.

My PC at home runs SuSE 8.1 and I can boot win2K if I really have to I
also have a laptop running SuSE 8.1 the rest of the family (3) have PCs
running Win2K. I also have spurious other boxen that get connected from
time to time, such as a SUN Ultra 30 workstation, last time I played it
had SuSE installed on it, although I do intend to install Solaris 9,
which I have sitting around. I do have a second server running Samba and
Apache, which is used as an Internet facing server to supplement some
ISP storage, something one of the kids uses this to store MP3s she links
to from her website, as the server is running Samba, she simply maps a
drive to this server so she can easily add files to the web server.

I use VMWare on my PC occasionally when I quickly need to run windows,
or another copy of Linux or other OSes.

I can connect to my server either via SMB (Samba) or NFS, for most
normal access I use Samba as it is convenient and flexible for my needs,
with a few tweaks a non root user can mad drives as required, I have
added mount commands so my windows style home drive and shared drives
are mapped automatically when I log into KDE my preferred Linux desktop.

I transfered to Linux last December and I have found there is very
little reason to run Windows I can do all I need to do in Linux. Since
OpenOffice has been released it has become a great alternative to
MSOffice.

Essentially I have a Linux box that integrates well with the Windows
network in the house and with the way my family use our server, shared
drive to put swap stuff between us and a home drive for personal files,
all managed by a Linux / Samba server.

Rather than tape I have opted for a second hard disk as a backup device,
I have a script running on a CRON job that backs up all our userdata at
5am every morning using an application called "rdisk" this is very fast
and works well.=20

I think the best thing to do is mail me off-list when you have digested
this email and we can discuss options in more detail.


On Wed, 2002-10-23 at 20:28, mark wilkes wrote:
> Hello all,
>=20
> I am currently in the midst of building / purchasing another 3 PC's + hub=
,=20
> network cards, cat5 cables etc for my home network / hobby / obsession.
> I would like to use linux Suse8 as the operating system for my server (wh=
ich I=20
> have) or hpux 11(which I require) and dual boot with win 2000 server (whi=
ch I=20
> require). I would like to use win 2000 professional (which I require) and=
=20
> another linux or Unix o/s ( which I require) for my client PC's.
> Any suggestions on the best way to do this would be be great e.g s/w I ca=
n=20
> borrow or purchase & any hardware for sale.
> I reckon if I buy a couple of Pentium2 machines with 64m ram and then bui=
ld my=20
> own server with 1+gig processor and 256m ram to intergrate with my Pentiu=
m3=20
> 128m ram PC (dual booting linux suse8 & win 98se) I should have a decent=20
> starting point.
> Any do's or don'ts?
> I only have a 56k modem at the moment so I can't download any s/w to big,=
 but=20
> will hopefully upgrade to broadband when my network is up and running.
> My budget isn't very big (=A3400-500max) but I saw some really cheap stuf=
f at=20
> the Northern computer fair last week (pent2 full system =A365 & monitor =
=A330) .=20
> Are these events ok to acquire bargains or is most of it junk?
> Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.=20
>=20
> Thanks Mark Wilkes.
> ps; Hopefully in the near future my next project will be to add a router =
or=20
> web caching server with firewall. In I.T expansion is limitless but I thi=
nk=20
> my wife will kill me before the network takes over the house.
>=20
>=20
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