Home Networking

[clonetheplanet]

i want to wiring my house, and have all the computers networked, and i was wondering how many people here have networked there house and what did you use.

i was thinking about using STP CAT 5 cable, but i don't know what kind of switches or router i should use because of cost. or if i should even use wireless?

[ac1dsp3ctrum]

Well, Right now I have a tiny home network (2 computers) set up just for the purpose of ICS... I used Netgear NIC's, proffesional grade CAT 5, and a small Netgear router.... I also have 2 computers filtering all traffic that goes in/out of our house.... Soon when I get FreeBSD on the first computer I will be truly anonymous

P.S. - What kind of material you need depends on how many computers your thinking of supporting

[zigar]

i've got a watchguard SOHO router/FW and a dual nic'd box with a linksys phoneline network setup...just plug the linksys cards into the phone line and it runs a 10mbps connection..for up to 30 internal ip's....not great but beats the heck out of running cat5 through a finished house....doesn't disrupt phone use either...takes about 20 minutes to set up...gotta like that...

[draziw]

Myself, I wouldn't use wireless without a significant bit more equipment, but that's just me... also, it's kinda almost pointless unless you have a laptop or some other machine that you're going to move all the time, IMO. I don't know how many times I've driven around the local area and "found" wireless networks that were easy enough to quickly jump on and get out to the Internet on...

If you're wanting to run fast ethernet (100Mb), then CAT5 is the way to go... else CAT3 is about all you need (though I'm not sure how easy it is to get CAT3 cables anymore now that pre-manufactured CAT5 cables have gotten so cheap). So, something like a simple 8-port Netgear hub or switch and a bunch of 25 foot or 50 foot CAT5 cables and some reasonable network card should do ya...

[clonetheplanet]

Originally posted here by zigar
i've got a watchguard SOHO router/FW and a dual nic'd box with a linksys phoneline network setup...just plug the linksys cards into the phone line and it runs a 10mbps connection..for up to 30 internal ip's....not great but beats the heck out of running cat5 through a finished house....doesn't disrupt phone use either...takes about 20 minutes to set up...gotta like that...

Well, i have an advantage. my house isn't all the way done, and i could wire my house with anything. someone even suggested that i do fiber, but that would be extremly exspensive, but it would be cool.

[ac1dsp3ctrum]

heh, I think Louie has fiber optic in his house... Hes a weird one... I dont understand why you would need more that 10/100 MBS

[nietzsche]

My $.02 on this: I'm running a cluster and a few stand-alone boxes over here. I've got 2 Cisco routers up and running, one SMC Tiger-Switch 100, one SOHO 9 port 10/100 auto-switching, auto-sensing switch, and everything's 100-base. Of course ... it'll be weird to explain to the landlord what these "phone-jack-like-things" are in the walls when I go, but that's okay.

[xpaciscool]

I waz wondering... If you are networking 2 computers, do u need some sort of router or hub? or could you just link the computers directly with a CAT 5 cable??
Also i have searched for networking, both software and hardware, but i have found none. Does anybody know any good networking sites???

[TotalChaos(D~Sq]

I have three computers on my network it's simple it did not cost much it's in three rooms so I have cat 5 cable around the house one is 50' going to a hub.

[VictorKaum]

xpaciscool >>> you can crosslink your boxes directly without a hub
PC1 ---- crosslink cable ---- PC2

So regular CAT5 won't work but a crosslink CAT5 does work, it's the easiest 10/100 Mbps ethernet setup between two boxes.
Here's a link how to make ethernet cables: http://www.atcomservices.com/highlights/makepatch.htm