Messages in this thread | | | From | "Anthony Barbachan" <> | Subject | Re: Cheap network for two hosts ? | Date | Mon, 28 Dec 1998 01:32:46 -0500 |
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-----Original Message----- From: Gregory Maxwell <linker@z.ml.org> To: Anthony Barbachan <barbacha@Hinako.AMBusiness.com> Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@transmeta.com>; linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu <linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu> Date: Monday, December 28, 1998 12:37 AM Subject: Re: Cheap network for two hosts ?
>On Sun, 27 Dec 1998, Anthony Barbachan wrote: > >> >For two hosts, you can use 10Base-T or 100Base-TX cards without a hub >> >using a crossover cable, as well. It's a lot less messy than coax, >> >and support for coax is going the way of the dodo. Of course, coax >> >won't do 100 Mbit/s at all. >> > >> > -hpa >> >> Problem with the crossover cable is that it only works for two machines. >> While coax may not be the latest and greatest it definately works perfectly >> well for many if not most people, providing you do not have a large number >> of machines on the network. > >Well the subject does say 'two hosts'. Furthermore, I think that unless
Yes, but coax would leave room to expand easily. Also may be easier to setup depending on whether you get a premade "crossover" cable, which might be difficult and/or slightly expensive.
>you get refuse for free, a hub and cables and 10/100 cards is cheaper then >thinnet and tees and terms and crap ne2000 cards. The cross cable solution
The hub will kill any price advangtage unless maybe the distance between the computers is quite large; large enougth that the coax cable + T's and terminators would cost more than the cat 5 cable + the hub. Take the hub out of the equasion and you are half right depending on where you buy. The 100 BaseT adapters also kill you for a "cheap" network. At reseller/show prices ne2000 cards can be gotten for as little as $10 for ISA and $17 for the RealTek 8019AS PCI version which works very well. The cheapest 100 baseT network cards at reseller/show prices is around $30. And while perhaps the original ne2000's may be crap by TODAY'S standards (can't say as I only have one of these laying around in and old little used SCO machine) many ne2000 clones do quite well. I have seen a good number of these guys in many locations doing quite nicely (obviously they do better in cat 5 networks than coax but I'm speaking on behave of the ne2000 compatable adapters right now). At a client I have an old Linux server running ever since I had been able to round up old leftover parts to put him together. By the time of the incident I'm about to mention occured this workhorse was the partial modem server, partial print server, samba server, NFS server, fax server, uucp server, backup server, and my personal programming/debugging (especially network based programs) machine who worked alongside an Ultra2 Sparc servicing a large company. With all the jobs currently assigned to it you can easily see that this machine does have alot of network traffic. Overtime I have taken advangtage of dead or retired machines to provide hardware upgrades whenever possible. Originally this guy had an ISA ne2000 compatable adapter. When an 3COM 3c509 became available I decided to upgrade the workhorse. While there may be a mesurable increase in network performance there is little to no increase in noticable performance; which was rather disappointing. I'd say this rises ne2000 compatables above the crap.
>scales well. (two 10 + hub/cards/cables = many 10. Two 100 + h/c/c = many >10 or with a slightly more expensive hub = many 100.).. >
Irrelevent for a cheap 2 computer network. Also 100 baseT hubs are not "slightly more expensive", they are alot more expensive. Something like $30 to $200 (show prices) when looking at the cheapest comfigurations and "El Cheapo" manufacturers (A la PC Chips; maker of the fake cache chipped motherboards).
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