I have a small home lan 5x. I use Linux Mint as a server for video and music files to the other four machines. I have three linksys router(s) that I plug everything into. The router(s) has a built-in firewall.

Presently I have:

INTERNET --> ROUTER ----> 5X COMPS, INCLUDING SERVER.

Would anything be gained by using Clark Connect (CC) in this setup:

INTERNET ---> CC SERVER ---> ROUTER -----> 4X COMPS.

IMO, no.

This doesn't sound right, 3 routers for 5 computers.

Linksys makes 4 and 8 port router/switches for small LANS. I suspect you have 1 router with 5 computers connected to it, unless you have hub(s) or switch(es) after the router? Nothing wrong with that.

The amount of functionality in a Linksys router is extremely limited when compared to a full-blown gateway/firewall distro. There is LOTS to be gained by adding an x86 box with a gateway/firewall distro to your network - but only if you are willing to use the additional features. What you should do is go to the website of this distro you are considering and then compare the features it offers with those of your current Linksys router. Then decide for yourself.

My house has four wall plates, each with connections for telephone (RJ-11), Cable (Coax), and LAN (RJ-45). All lead to the basement computer room, which has three computers. Daisy chaining a WRT54G router to another cost a physical lan connection, because it's not the WAN port that's used, right? That leaves only three usable lan connections per router. To save bandwidth, I try to have only three to five computers on at a time. But I wire all comps up, never know when I might want to power up a spare rig remotely with wakeonlan.

Thank you for your reply. One small problem. Assume this topography:

INTERNET ---> CC SERVER ---> ROUTER(s) -----> 4X COMPS.

The CC server has 1.5 TB of music and videos, which it spools out to the router(s) on request from local rigs. And it also handles traffic to and from web pages at same time. Lotta work for one server. Maybe two servers, one before router, handling web action, another one in router serving local music/video to peers?

This is why I configure frostwire downloads to be received by the server and not by the individual comps. Networking is fun.

I wish I could do the same with my Mozilla Thunderbird email profiles (the data) on the server. That way, I could access my current emails from anywhere in the house, on any rig. But I dunno if it's possible to set up ~.mozilla-thunderbird to do that. I change distros and hardware frequently.

IP forwarding doesn't really generate any hard disk usage, so if that's all you're gonna have the CC box doing then it shouldn't have any problems doing file-serving at the same time. Of course, if all you're gonna have it do is IP forwarding then it's sort of pointless to have CC. Why don't you just have this set up like a regular LAN? Why would you want to have your file server on the edge of the network?

I think you're right. That's the way I intend to do it.