Linux Novice

[Kevin Buettner]

On Jul 29,  9:41pm, steve wrote:

> 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.

Doubtful.

>     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.

I think the cheap one will be satisfactory for your purposes.

> 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. 

You don't really need Gigabit ethernet cards for your application. 
The only way you'd be able to fully utilize this hardware is if you
have intensive network activity on your side of the firewall.  Save
yourself the expense (and the grief) and just get some 10/100 cards
instead.

Kevin