Messages in this thread | | | From | "Joshua Snyder" <> | Subject | RE: Cheap network for two hosts ? | Date | Tue, 12 Jan 1999 23:17:01 -0500 |
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The main reason that I use UTP over coax in my home network is accessibility. By that I mean, most people who have Ethernet cards in their computer have a UTP port, but not everyone has coax. I know this would be no issue if you were buying all of the machines yourself. Let me give you an example of a scenario were the comes into play. One of the main uses for my network is multiplayer games. I like to invite my friends to come over to play ( LAN parties ) things like Quake2 and starcraft. Many of the computers that they bring ( and my machine also ) have 10/100meg cards. I have yet to see a 10/100 card with a coax port. I would recommend using coax if I knew I was only going to ever want to use my own machines. If you have even a small felling that you would want to host a lan party I would use UTP.....
josh
> > On Sun, 10 Jan 1999, Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH wrote: > > >More careless --- UTP is more forgiving than 10Base2; if you > leave a cable > >dangling unconnected (or accidentally snap the cable) a UTP LAN > will still > >work aside from the machine(s) disconnected by the cable break, whereas > >10Base2 will probably give you many errors and kill throughput > on the entire > >LAN. > > No kidding. That is one of the advantages of UTP. In a scenario > where the cables are NOT dangling or in a position to have 1000 > pound steel plates dropped on them, this advantage is > meaningless however, and coax is just as good. Coax is more > unlikely to get broken than UTP as well. The cable is thick and > strong. In a home environment, this is good enough for most > cases, ESPECIALLY cheap quick solutions. If someone were wiring > their house with network cable, I would heavily recommend going > with UTP however, and forking for the hub. It is much more > worth it in the long run to go for UTP, but not all situations > demand forking out the extra cost. A simple 2 machine network, > or even a simple 3 machine network is a good example. It really > depends on the customers usage and other needs though. > > >It's considered bad form for a cable break on one side of the > building to > >screw up a file transfer between two machines next to each other on the > >other side of the building... bot with 10Base2 this can happen. > > Yes, it can, but the scenarios that you are describing sound more > "business" networkish to me. It's not like all kinds of people > are out there with 20 computers networked in their houses with > all this space between machines... We're talking SIMPLE NETWORK > in the home. UTP is not needed. > > >And Cat.5 is more flexible; I can run a cable under the floor a lot more > >easily and with less risk of damaging the cable (see previous > paragraph). > >Putting a kink in coax can put a pretty serious kink in your > network even if > >the cable isn't broken! > > That I will strongly agree with. Again though, it really truely > depends on the exact scenario. If someone came to me to set > up either a home or business network, I would want to see the > site itself, and know how much they want to spend. I'd make some > recommendations based on that. I'd likely recommend that they > got UTP if there were more than 2 machines, for the advantages > that UTP does have, but I'd also give them a price for coax too, > and let them decide. Most 2-3 user home networks would likely go > with the coax I believe. > > > > > -- > Mike A. Harris - Computer Consultant - Linux advocate > > Linux software galore: http://freshmeat.net > > > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ >
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