Ok.. Min hardware questions

[weasel]

Ok.. gave up on vmware.. just doesn't want to work for me.
So, i guess i will need to get another puter.. COuple questions.

My Current PC is a p3 1gig With WinXP, bout 1/2gig ram. It has a Acatel SpeedTouch USB DSL Modem (yea i know USB is bad, but all they wold give me), and am using winxp to dialup to my ISP, as the software that comes with the dsl package for dialing is not winxp compliant. I also have an old NE2000 Compatible ISAPNP Ethernet Adapter, and an ethernet cable. WinXP is pretty much a fresh install, besides the drivers and such for my dsl modem.

Couple questions.
1. I could if i asked my gf nicely have full access to an old toshiba laptop.. its like a p1 133 with 64ram or such. Would it be cheaper to get a network card for this and then use it as my linux/showeq machine then getting a really really cheap new system for it? (like VERY cheap).
2. what exactally would i need to buy/download/install to get it to work? I know i would need to get an ethernet card for the laptop. Would i need a hub or anything?
3. What software would i need to install to make the connection work? If i understand correctly a router dials into my dsl connectionm then splits it into my 2 machines. Thats good for internet surfing, but is that what i want for packet sniffing of EQ? could i just plug one ethernet card into the other and that be it?
4. Lastly, on another thread i did about getting vmware to work for seq... someone said that pppoe is very bad, and would not allow seq to work on eq. Not 100% sure i understand. Assuming i have the setup as i listed before.. would using the built in dialup dsl winxp feature thingie be bad? what can i do to work around it?
Sorry about this, but i am still really confused on networking... but i am learning fast. You guys here have been very helpful sofar, and i appreciate it.
Thanks again, and hopefully we can work this out :)

[gomped]

Problem here as I see it is that if you are using a router, then as a rule of thumb for routers, packets go directly to where they are addressed, rather than being out there on your network to be picked up by all.

Best bet is to set up your linux box once you get it done to dial into your ISP (I know Mandrake 8.1 has support for the Alcatel USB modem) and set up Internet Connection sharing). Problem with that solution is that the old laptop probably does not have the required hardware for USB connection, which means that you would have to buy a USB PC-Card (if they exist).

Good luck, but I think that is what you are stuck with as a solution. Others here may have other ideas.

[Ataal]

It's not the router that doesn't forward the packets, it's the switch. So, if you can find a router that has a dumb hub, that would be ideal. Otherwise, you can get a Router/switch and hook a dumb hub up to that. However, if price is an issue, it may not be feasible.

Another way to do it is set up your linux box to be the router/gateway and run NAT on it. Two nics in the linux box, one coming from the DSL modem, the other going out to the windows machine(be sure to use a crossover cable between PC's). Or get a hub, so you can add PC's later and have the other nic on the linux box running to the hub with a patch cable.

If it is a laptop, (and an older one at that), you may not be able to put two NIC's in it.

Personally, I'd try to peice together another PC using older parts. I could probably piece together about 5 sub-par systems just from the out of date cards/boards/chips I replace every so often. You may have some friends that are the same way, or check ebay for someone trying to get rid of some older system for cheap.

Let us know how the mission goes )

[gomped]

Your average switch actually forwards packets.. just that it does it at layer 2 instead of layer 3 like a router does. Anyway, neither here nor there... this is sort of the picture I envisioned

He would have to run the linux box as a gateway in this configuration but this is how I have mine working well had it working unit I had to redo my system and put 4.0 on.. that is a whole other can of worms.. damn QT-2.3.2

[weasel]

Well.. the laptop does have a USB port on it in the back.. so then assuming that i can get an ethernet card for the laptop, which i have done some research and doesn't seem too costly. Only problem then is, that whenever i want to go online on my main puter, i would either have to boot the laptop, or unplug from laptop and plug into main puter.. not a big deal overall.. but still annoyin. (not that i hve any room to bitch)

As to scrapping together another machine. Well.. i dug through all my old boxes and stuff.. got out the dust-o-matic to remove the layers.. and this is what i found.. hehe
Old HP Pavilian (thought i gave it away). But heres the cetch. The motherboard is about the only thing still in the case. I found the powersupply for it, but it is completly unhooked. I found my old 3gig hard drive laying around, but checking it on my main system it is completly unformatted. 1 64mb pc100 ram chip, an old winmodem (aack!), and a very old looking ethernet card, with both the phone line lookin plugin, and a co-axle lookin plugin. 1 parallel (not sure what they called), for hooking hard drive to motherboard, a floppy drive and keyboard/mouse.
Now i am not completly stupid when it comes to putting together a PC, i did build mostly my current one. Couple questions though. Will i be able to run showeq without having a video card? i forgot if they can run just plugging into the built in monitor port on motherboard. assuming i can get this beast to hookup and install, god willing... with the old ethernet card and such, would that work?
I am not even going to go into assuming it works, how i setup the connection between the two, still a tad confused on that, though i think i am getting it. And to think 3 days ago if you asked me what a NAT was i would say an insect.
May progress give divine knowledge.

[weasel]

hehe.. you posted gomped while i was posting.. missed the attachment =)

[Ataal]

Bad choice of wording on my part. Switches don't forward "broadcasts". Routers and switches are completely different things, they do NOT perform the same function. The router in this case is just the gateway and the switch, or hub, is just to have more than two PC's on the network. For some reason I was thinking he was running DSL and wanted both PC's using that line, which is why I suggested two nics on the linux box.

Weasel,

You do indeed need a video card unless the video is "on-board". In other words, if you have a HD15 female connector on the motherboard, that should work. (most retail machines like HP, Packard Bell, Compaq...etc. have on board video and sound.)

Other than that, sounds like you should be ok. 3GB drive is plenty of space for Linux with showeq. 64MB of ram is fine, that's all I have in my linux box at the moment.

"1 parallel (not sure what they called), for hooking hard drive to motherboard"

Just so you know, that's a 40-pin IDE ribbon cable.

[weasel]

Ok, guess i am going to give it a try then. I will just have to make sure to use my main puter to install red hat onto the other hard drive since i only have the one ribbon cable. I will let you know how it goes.

Now onto finding a web site with good info and visuals on correctly hookin in a powersupply into motherboard =)

[weasel]

Ok, i officially hate computers, tiny screws that go in them, flahslights that die on you when trying to read the small info on the motherboard, and soda cans that are already empty when you pull them out of the case. That said, here is my progress.

I installed the hard drive i want to use for linux, and put it into my main puter. I then installed red hat onto the hard drive, and it went perfectly. I made sure to select generic for the video card and such since i don't have a spare one and am using the on board monitor plug. I then took out the hard drive, plugged it into my other puter, put the ram card in, ethernet card, screwed in powersupply, plugged in board plug, fan, ect and hard drive. Took the 40-pin IDE ribbon cable for the hard drive, put the board end into motherboard, master end into hard drive.. and then booted it up.. no love whatsoever. Listening to the hard rive when i turn it on, make a like 1 sec load sound, stops, then does it again.. after the next second, no more sound.. and it just sits there.. the monitor doesn't come on or anything.. Tried switching around the cables from master to slave, cable on motherboard, ect. Did a check on the jumpers (HD is a Quantum Fireball ex), had one jumper thingie in the far left for master.. tried switcvhing it to cable select, no love.. so yea.. damb technolgy and science to hell..!!!
THink i will take a break for the night and go kill some poor newbs in Ghost recon.

[high_jeeves]

Why are you installing redhat on your main computer? I'm thorougly confused now. You need to get redhat CDs, set up your Linux PC, and install redhat on it... doing on your main computer is going to lead to all sorts of fun hardware reconfiguring. Also, you arent going to be placing your boot image in the correct place (unless you specifically know what you are doing here).

It seems that you are saying you only have 1 IDE cable for two machines? if that is the case, you need one for each machine or else you will only be able to use one at a time.

You really need to get the ShowEQ machine built, then install Linux, then ShowEQ. I would highly recommend perusing some of the documentation at www.linux.org.

-Jeeves

[weasel]

no no no no no....

I took the hard drive i am using for the linux/showeq machine and hooked it into my main computer so i could install red hat onto it since my showeq/linux machine does not have a cdrom.

My main machine is completly hooked up and such.. but for spare parts all i have is 1 spare IDE cable to use on other computer. Which sonce i don't need floppy or cd, works for the hard drive.

Problem now is that i can't get the damb hard drive to do anything..

(and beleive me i know i just need to go and get another machine, if i could convice the bills to go away for a month i would, trust me!)

[Cryonic]

As has already been stated, putting that Hard drive in your main machine and installing there, then moving the drive to the other system is going to screw everything up.

/etc/fstab will not have the correct entries for the partitions. Will need a rescue floppy to fix and a floppy drive to boot off of :)
X will need to be reconfigured for the new graphics card/monitor.

You would be better off temporarily taking the cdrom from the main machine, putting it in the box that will be for SEQ along with the hard drive for linux and doing the install directly onto that machine. This will minimize the headaches that will result from moving the drive from the main machine to the true linux box.

[Ataal]

I second that cryonic, placing the cdrom from your main machine on your second machine is the best way to do this.

IDE cables are cheap, really cheap. Go buy one....

Now as far as your HD not working in your other machine. I need to know EVERYTHING that is happening when you turn the machine on:

Things like, is the power supply fan spinning?

Do you get a link light on your ethernet card with a cable plugged in it when you turn the power on the machine?

Are there any beeps?

If you are getting power, is the problem that the BIOS cannot detect the HD?

etc...
etc...
etc...

[fgay trader]

I used to run SEQ on a P1 200 w/MMX laptop with 64 mb ram on RedHat 7.2 and it was almost unusable. Then again, I'm a Linux newb so it could've just been me. After a few weeks of hell I gave the laptop away and went to a local used computers dealer where I picked up a P2 300 w/128 mb ram for $20 :eek: Don't freak out, that price didn't include monitor, net card, HD or video card (those i already had from my old computer junk collection :p ), but they're all cheap enough if you use the same channels. Now SEQ is very happy and so am I.

My point is you DO need better hardware than you described if not for SEQ then for your Linux distribtuin, because you'll probably want the latest version.

Another point - try to get a used machine, cheap. Good places to look are online auctions (although they kill you with shipping charges) or your local computer store's basement, you never know what junk they keep in there that you could make good use of :) .


-FGay Trader... er.. GFay :D

[RavenCT]

For a month or so I ran SEQ on a Compaq Presario Pentium 233 (Actually an AMD chip, I prefer Intel)
32 MB of RAM
Built in Video
3GB hard drive...

Now, if you installed all the server stuff from RH it was almost unbearable, not to mention the compile times were horrendous... but if you could get the thing installed with the minimum packages and without anything that you don't need... the it is usable. It took a while to start up, even longer to compile, but SEQ ran okay on it. Maybe zoning took a little longer, but it did work.... If you do have just a little bit of change, I would go to a show and get a cheap PII and the RAM for it...

Now I run it on a PII 400 W/128 MB of ram, and it's much better...

[Cryonic]

:) P150 Laptop here, no complaints with RH7.2. Problem seems to be what GUI environment people are picking. DON'T use KDE or GNOME, find a lightweight one like icewm. Works great, still using it now.