OT: W2k ICS vs. Linux masquerading

["Mark Harrison" <Mark@xxxxxxx>]

Guys,

Well - I finally have my home network all accessing the Internet!

A few observations that may be useful for anyone wanting to try this, on a
=
budget, at home.

I'm running W2k with Internet connection sharing at work (ISDN connection
t=
o a toll-free ISP) - this seems to be a bit flakey and connections seem to
=
hang quite often. Furthermore, because my ISP sometimes gets timeouts on
it=
s security servers, W2k interprets this as user non-authentication, and
the=
refore drops the password from the connection settings, requiring me to
re-=
enter it by hand. (This means that, in practice, dial-on-demand doesn't
wor=
k, since I end up having to go to the server to retype the password.)

By comparison, at home I have finally got a Linux box up and running,
again=
with ISDN, on the same ISP, on an old P-200 overdrive machine, with a 1Gb =
HDD - getting Linux installed wasn't too tricky - getting a old SMC
network=
card and a modern Eicon PCI ISDN card to co-exist was harder (like - my wi=
fe had to do that bit, since I couldn't). Getting IPCHAINS working was
easy=
, once I'd found the right "dummies" HOWTO.

In practice, I'm finding that the Linux one appears more reliable, and is
d=
oing Dial-on-Demand properly. However, it was a much longer job to get
inst=
alled and working.

The costs of doing it the Linux way:

- Old PC (P-200, 1Gb HDD, 32Mb RAM) - effectively free, since it's the
PC-b=
efore-the-one-before the current one.
- 2 Network cards - again free, since my office was chucking them out, as
t=
hey upgraded to 100Mb/sec
- 16 port hub - =A330 from PC fair at local sports centre
- Network cables - got a bunch that were chucked out in the last recabling
=
at a previous firm
- SUSE 7.0 personal Linux - less than =A350, I think?
- ISP registration fee - =A335
- ISP 24x7 toll-free annual contract - =A340 (no longer available,
recently=
gone up to =A390).
- ISDN installation and rental charges (ADSL not available in my area.)


Next step is to get the lighting control web server installed again
(follow=
ing the delivery of a different new-to-me PC to run it on.)

Does any one else have any comments on things I might want to do next?

Regards,

Mark


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