I am probably not ready for this but am going ahead anyway as (with the help of you great LQ people) so far I have been homering my way through.
I want to lan 5 'puters. I'd like internet access with all 5. 3 of the 'puters are pII's running at at least 233 MHz and 40+ megs of ram. The other 2 puters are 2.2 gig celerons with 128+ megs of ram.
I won't need internet access with more than 2 'puters at the same time.
I would like all of them lanned at least so I could share a printer and scanner.
I have Dsl internet access.

I started googling for linux compatibility and was quickly overwhelmed by the flood of info about network adapters and wireless network adapters. It was then I realized I did'nt even know what I needed.

Some questions to help me choose a direction and refine my searching. (please add any suggestions/questions of your own as I often ask the wrong questions any way)

1. Is it possible to do this with a combination of wired and wireless?
2. Should I be able to do this with the tools /utilities that come with Mandrake 9.2 without installing third party software?
3. Because all of my 'puters have unused usb ports is it possible to use usb for some of the lan?
4. If usb is possible what are the pros and cons ?
5. Realistically, what are the distance limitations of wireless, Ethernet cable, usb? (I'll have one long run,about 40-50 feet as the crow flies, slightly longer if I use cable).
6. Do I need a hub? or a router?or both?( I planned on asking the guy at the store but they have unintentionally misled me before )
7. Can I use a computer in place of a hub/router.? Would this be a lot harder than using a hub or router?


Attention Slackers: Yes, I know. I want to try slack as soon as I can, but need to get my lan up as quick as possible and am fairly comfortable with mandy 9.2 at the moment. If its any consolation, I am beginning to think more and more in terms of the command line and less in terms of the gui when it comes to fixing or installing something. And it feels good. I think it may be the 1st step towards enlightenment.

Thanks for any help

Continued gratitude to all those who help us newbies

side note: I just got Dsl installed this morning. the guy who installed it had not much previous dealings with linux. He was supprised that mandy picked the Dsl connection right up, didn't miss a beat.

<edit> 01-08-04
I wound up using cheapo router and nics (the router was a freebie) all are iblitzz netwave. Everythings working ok, the only thing is the distance I got from the wireless nics was not as advertised. I couldnt get them to work at more than 40ft away(poor conditions) so I started looking into extension antennas, when I found they cost $80 u.s. I went and got some aluminum foil out of the kitchen drawer, shaped it like a bowl stuck it on the nic card antenna and pointed it in the direction of the router (bout 65ft, 4 walls between) and - wala - it started working, decent signal, bout 95%. Really suprised me, didnt really think it it would help but it did.

It is definately possible!

You need to make some decisions.

1) As for wired & wireless; Yes, it can be done easily! You would need to go with the router option and get one with wired and wireless capabilities. No sweat on that.

2) Should not need additional tools except for maybe drivers for wireless

3 & 4) Maybe. I have not tried USB network adapters with Linux, but it should work. If your kernel doesn't have USB support built in, you will have to recompile the kernel.

5) Wireless has a lot of factors on distance and speed. Do you have sheetrock walls with no insulation or 3' thick lead coated concrete walls or are you a clear line of sight to the WAP (Wireless Access Point)? Do you live directly underneath high tension power lines? Any solar flares today? etc... As for UTP CAT5 (Ethernet), you will be well within distance in your house, unless yuor house is HUGE. Max distance for 100BASE-TX is 100 meters (328 feet) on CAT5 cable.

6) See #7 below. Router if not using Linux as router, switch if you are. I would not get a hub. A switch has dedicated channels and a hub is shared bandwidth. Switches are very cheap nowadays, a 5 port 100 Mb switch can be had for < $50.

7) You said you have DSL so you can buy a broadband router and plug it into your DSL modem and then get NICs for the other PCs and plug them directly into the router. Or you can put 2 NICs in a Linux box and use it as a router/firewall/proxy server by connecting one NIC to DSL and the other to a switch where other PCs plug into. I would go with the router unless you are familiar with IPTables, routing, forwarding, etc.

HTH!

Moving to Linux - Networking

Cool

Yes, you can use USB as a ppp connection. In fact you can set it up for a dial on demand type application. Pretty kewl actually. You could also use serial (null modem). Just search the ldp for "ppp over a serial connection". You could apply this to a USB connection as well. You can set this up for routing and full ethernet capabilities. This works great when you run out of PCI slots. But if you have the PCI room, it is much easier to just go with a NIC. You can get a realtek for 5 bucks.

As far as setting up a Linux based firewall/router...this site is excellent:
http://eressea.pikus.net/~pikus/plug...all/page0.html

I use a Linux based firewall/router with iptables, and I couldn't be happier. The time it took to learn iptables was well worth it. This would be much more secure (and capable) than some dinky linksys NAT crapper.

--hope this helps