Router with an old 486/66

Router with an old 486/66

[Miguel González Castaños]

Dear all,

 I just got an old 486 with only 8 Megabytes with no CD-Rom. I put an
1,6 Gb HD and I am trying to get some more memory (which is quite
difficult). I installed a RedHat 7.3 on other PC and then switch the HD
to the 486, worked fine :)

 By now I have a Pentium II as gateway, but for two or three PCs
connected in a home LAN I think Its too much and I would like to use
that Pentium II as server.

 So I am trying to configure this old 486 as my gateway for my home lan.
I have one ISA 3com 10/100 but I am wondering if It would be worth to
buy another one only 10 Mbps because it is connect to a cable
connection...

 For now everything is ok, my questions are:

 1.- 8 Mbs are enough or I really need to try to find more memory. I
mean, I am trying to get more memory but I wont buy more ISA network
cards if 8 megs is not enough to make it work right, at least I wont buy
more net cards until I find more memory...

 2.- I am doing some research of how to also add wireless capabilities
to such gateway. I didnt know until I read an article at O`Reilly that
there are ISA-to-PCMCIA adapters and then I could use them in an old
486. My question is, those adapters work fine? I could used them in the
case I update the PCMCIA wireless card to 802.11g ?

Many thanks for your time and hope these question are not very
off-topic.

Miguel

Re: Router with an old 486/66

[Kevin J. Cummings]

Miguel González Castaños wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
>  I just got an old 486 with only 8 Megabytes with no CD-Rom. I put an
> 1,6 Gb HD and I am trying to get some more memory (which is quite
> difficult). I installed a RedHat 7.3 on other PC and then switch the HD
> to the 486, worked fine :)
> 
>  By now I have a Pentium II as gateway, but for two or three PCs
> connected in a home LAN I think Its too much and I would like to use
> that Pentium II as server.
> 
>  So I am trying to configure this old 486 as my gateway for my home lan.
> I have one ISA 3com 10/100 but I am wondering if It would be worth to
> buy another one only 10 Mbps because it is connect to a cable
> connection...

FWIW, unless you happen to have a 10Mbps card laying around (in which 
case use it!), there's practically no difference in price in no-name 
10/100 ethernet cards and 10Mbps cards (assuming you can even find a 
10Mbps only card....).

I have my cable modem hooked up to a 10/100 (because I had one laying 
around when my 10Mbps only card mysteriously died one day).  I could 
have hooked up an NE2000 or a WD8003e, but that would have required a 
twisted pair to thick- and/or thin-net converter.  (I think I have one 
of those around here somewhere too!)  B^)

>  For now everything is ok, my questions are:
> 
>  1.- 8 Mbs are enough or I really need to try to find more memory. I
> mean, I am trying to get more memory but I wont buy more ISA network
> cards if 8 megs is not enough to make it work right, at least I wont buy
> more net cards until I find more memory...

I used to run Linux 1.0 in 4MB of memory on a 386.  OK, so X11 was a 
dog!  I'm pretty sure most distros want 16MB these days.  If you don't 
have the RAM, you'll want plenty of swap space, but who wants your 
router swapping all day long....

>  2.- I am doing some research of how to also add wireless capabilities
> to such gateway. I didnt know until I read an article at O`Reilly that
> there are ISA-to-PCMCIA adapters and then I could use them in an old
> 486. My question is, those adapters work fine? I could used them in the
> case I update the PCMCIA wireless card to 802.11g ?

And what, a CABLE/DSL/Wireless router is < US$100 these days.  And it 
probably has a better CPU than a 486, and more RAM than 8MB, and it 
comes with a WWW interface....   But, what you want to do sounds like a 
fun project, and a *great* way to learn about firewalls....   B^)

> Many thanks for your time and hope these question are not very
> off-topic.

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome@rcn.com
cummings@kjchome.homeip.net
cummings@kjc386.framingham.ma.us

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