Here is the Achilles heal in your setup: your DSL connection. Even if you have 10,000,000 mbps within your home network, you are still limited to less then 10 Base T connection speeds with either DSL or a cable modem. So in your home you may have blazing speeds (I have 2 PCs that are 100 Base TX on a 10/100 switch), but your speeds to the outside world will be less than stellar. For a home network, I would not invest in 1000 mbps network connections unless you are streaming firewire video to a SAN. Mark Get paid cash every time you receive email! Sign up FREE at: http://www.MintMail.com/?m=830994 -----Original Message----- From: plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us [mailto:plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us]On Behalf Of steve Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2001 9:41 PM To: plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us Subject: Linux Novice I've just gotten a DSL line stuck in my house. I have 3 PC's, 1 (New dual 533 G4)Mac and 1 New G4 Mac Powerbook laptop. I haven't done anything yet. One of the clones has Red Hat 5.2/WIN 98(P I 166), 2nd one has WIN98(P II 350), the third clone is a AMD Duron 800 and has no OS on it. I want to use it as a firewall and webserver, so I went to Fry's Electronics and I found there are 3 Redhat boxes. A standard for $39.00, and workstation for $79.00 and a Professional server for $169.00. I also found that Netgear has a 1000 mbps ethernet card there for 149.00 but they did not have any 1000 mbps switches available. Questions: 1.) Is the Professional server worth buying? a.)Do I need it for what I want to do. b.)can I buy the cheap one and download all the other stuff packaged with the Pro Server or enough RPM's to get what I need. 2.) Without getting too bogged down with the Hardware compat list at Redhats site, has anyone had any great successes with 1000mbps ether cards and swithes or horr stories they want to share. I want the Mac to run as a game server for the new game Never Winter Nights when it ships with up to 64 people on it at one time. It already has a gig ether card in it. I want it to sit behind a Linux Redhat firewall as well has I'm tire of paying to host my website, so the 3rd clone would be perfect for a firewall/webserver. I'm too in-experienced to know exactly which Redhat package I should get, or where to start, so some direction would be nice if you have the time. Many thanks. Steve ________________________________________________ See http://PLUG.phoenix.az.us/navigator-mail.shtml if your mail doesn't post to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail. PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss