[ILUG] A request for help

[Niall O Broin]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 05:09:25PM +0100, Colm O'Gairbhith wrote:

> As a member of the Dublin Food-Co-op http://www.clubi.ie/dfc/ I'm
> involved in their IT committee. Since they're doing a review of their IT
> systems at the moment ( a couple of 486's, one pentium 150, no network,
> one printer, one modem used solely by the pentium, all running Windows
> 95/98 ) I'm hoping to lead them by the hand into the open-source world
> which I think fits the ethos of the co-op a bit better that the current
> MS-centric setup.
> 
> Here's the question, would the ILUG like to take us on as a project ??
> My idea is that, with a few network cards, the 486 on linux could work
> as a router for internet traffic and run SAMBA ( I believe this would
> allow all PC's then to share the printer ). All PC's could then be used
> for internet access, as opposed to the primacy of the pentium right now.
> What do you think ? and more importantly Can/Will you help ?

Whoa - I thought I sometimes kept hardware beyond its sellby date :-) You
certainly could use one of the 486s as a router and a Samba server, though
don't expect stunning performance, and using the box as a router could be
problematic depending on the type of UART (serial port chip) in the 486. And
you'd want have at least 16M of memory (and that's really pushing it - 32M
would be better) and then there'll be a problem with recent distributions,
nearly all of which are compiled for Pentium and up.

Could you not have a browse in a skip at Ericsson's and find some better
hardware :-)

Personally I don't have time to spend on this at the moment but I will
donate dual media network cards so you've got the networking hardware. I'll
also throw in whatever coax I have knocking so you may be able to do all the
networking FOC hardware wise, depending on your cable requirements,
otherwise you'll have to buy a hub and the necessary amount of TP cables.




Niall