name='mrapoc' said:
I hate my speedtouch lol.
How much we talking for decent enough stuff for my uses? I have my pc and my laptop on the network at the moment but possibly one or two more to be later added. I also wish to host little lan parties at my house which will mean about 6 perhaps on the network.
Could you link me to what i would need (i aint rich xD) and also talk me through what i would need to do.
Cheers
Well... your speedtouch is an ADSL modem, with a 4 port switch and 54mbs wireless. So if you want to replace it with smoothwall you need to get:
1. ADSL modem.
2. Access Point (wireless switch).
3. Network (ethernet/NIC) card.
For (1) you could just keep using your speedtouch but disable all the firewall/nat/router capabilities. Or you could buy a new ADSL modem. This will set you back anything from £22.20 upwards incl VAT.
For (2) you need to buy a wireless access point of some sort. This will set you back anything from £29.36 upwards incl VAT.
For (3) a cheap/simple PCI network card, 10/100 you don't need a gigabit one unless you plan to transfer massive files (20+ gb) around the network. These are dirt cheap, from £2.98 upwards incl VAT.
I've never tried to lan party on wireless, only wired. I'm not sure whether it makes a difference, longer round trip/ping times perhaps? Perhaps someone else here has experience with this?
I recently got one of these:
http://www.edimax.co.uk/en/produce_detail.php?pd_id=11&pl1_id=1&pl2_id=2
It's not what you need (as it has a router/NAT/firewall and no ADSL modem) but I thought I'd mention it because it uses a 'realtek' chip, same as the wireless on my motherboard, this is supposedly a good thing as it improves compatibility, just something to think about.
EdiMax is one of the cheaper brands but so far it's working ok (50%-80% signal strength) through a floor a couple of walls and with another wireless network next door providing interference (though I changed the default channel from 11 to 6 in an attempt to reduce this).
It's just a plain 54mbs wireless (802.11g), you can get what is called a MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output, 802.11g+) they are basically the same as the standard 54mbs but they allow multiple connections from one PC, allowing you to have one or more dedicated input and output connections, so you get 54mbs in each direction (for a total of 108mbs), instead of 54mbs shared for both. They typically come with extra antenna, these boost signal strength and would be recommended if you're planning to place it in one room and use it in another a little further away. I think the range of a normal one is 20 feet, MIMO increases this to 100 feet or something like that. There is also a new specification 802.11n with higher speeds, I expect it will be a while before it's adopted so I would ignore it for now.
Other brands to think about: netgear, linksys, billion, d-link, .. everyone has their favourite and everyone has a good/bad story to tell about <insert favourite or hated brand>
As for specific hardware suggestions, how about:
(1)
http://www.edimax.co.uk/en/produce_detail.php?pd_id=47&pl1_id=2&pl2_id=11
It has a router etc but I can't find a plain old ADSL modem with nothing else, I suspect they don't really make them any more. Comes with 4 ethernet ports but you would only connect the smoothwall to this machine, connecting other machines would place them 'outside' the protection of smoothwall.
(2)
http://www.edimax.co.uk/en/produce_detail.php?pd_id=19&pl1_id=1&pl2_id=5
Plain 54mbs 802.11g you could buy a better antenna seperately if you need to. Comes with 4 ethernet ports, you could plug lan party pcs into this, and your desktop.
(3)
http://www.edimax.co.uk/en/produce_detail.php?pd_id=41&pl1_id=2&pl2_id=9
This goes in the smoothwall machine, you connect (1) to this, and you connect (2) to the existing lan card (if you have one, if not buy two of these they're super cheap!)
I would only go to all this trouble if you really wanted a project, something to do with the machine and your time. You'd probably learn a bit about UNIX (smoothwall is based on it) and networking in general - but you might already know plenty.
Your current speedtouch is probably sufficient for your situation, unless you need more ethernet ports then you could just buy a non wireless switch and plug that in, no need to go overboard
Google images for smoothwall to get some idea how to plug everything in. Basically phone line into modem, smoothwall (first ethernet/nic card) into modem, smoothwall (2nd ethernet/nic card) into access point, pc into access point. So the data comes into the modem, into smoothwall, through smoothwall into the access point into your pcs.
Visit the smoothwall site for directions installing, last time I did it was a while back and I can't recall exact steps, and they've probably changed.
Let me know if there is anything you need to know, or are confused about.
