Help setting up a network

Turbulance · 15 Oct 2010 at 17:13

Hey all,

Need a bit of help planning and setting up a network for a new house. We are moving in about 2-3 weeks and theres going to be quite a lot of stuff connecting to the router. I'll quickly outline the details and if you have any ideas about how or what I will need, the it would be appreciated.

The internet has allready been setup by sky, and we've been told that we can get 10-20Mbps. (not activated yet so not sure of the actual speed)

There are going to be 5 people in the house and the network will span over 3 floors. Ideally the wireless network will reach all 3 floors.

In total the devices connected will be:
1 PC in Bedroom 1
1 PC, 1 xbox360, 1 PS3 in Bedroom 3
1 PC, 1 xbox360, 1 PS3 in Bedroom 4
2 PC's in the kitchen
1 laptop, PS3, xbox360 in the living room

As far as I am aware, the master socket is on the second floor, in the living room.

With the shere ammount of devices connected I was also looking at putting together a linux based server to manage internet traffic, sure I have the bits to build a basic system for this but I havent done this before.

Any help and advice on this would be appreciated, thanks.

Beerbaron · 15 Oct 2010 at 17:18

wireless in an option but signal maybe low in the top floors. you could also use powerline adaptors or have a wireless access point on another floor to extend the range of the signal

Turbulance · 15 Oct 2010 at 17:21

Thanks for the quick response, I didnt think of powerline gear, its a new house so how likeley is it that they will work over the whole house? I know in my previous house it was badly wired up and upstairs and downstairs didnt work via powerline. Also can you get powerline adaptors with built in wireless extenders on them?

Beerbaron · 15 Oct 2010 at 17:46

if its a new house i would have thought it would be fine. im using linksys ones and they work fine in a house thats <50 year old ex council house.

i just googled 'powerline adaptor with wireless' and that indeed did show such a device as i wasnt sure at first myself

Turbulance · 15 Oct 2010 at 19:27

Thanks again, what do you guys think about setting up a Linux based server? I've heard its quite easy to do and with the system being ADSL based on Sky, I cant just use a 3rd party firmware to do this for me so I dont really see any other choice if I want people to be able to use the internet on at least 5 systems at once that will allbe doing different things.

Turbulance · 16 Oct 2010 at 20:52

Dont mean to bump my own thread but I would rather ask here than make another thread about the same sort of topic.

Anyway, been doing some research on making a Linux Gateway, mainly to manage internet traffic so one person can game whilst another downloads. Then I could also add in Filesharing and set scripts up to download on the more energy efficent server than on the other more power hungry computers.

The question is, can you do this on Sky? As Sky say you have to use their router. Obviously the information is recieved by the Sky router but then relayed to the Gateway. And if so does anyone know of anygood guides for doing this?

Thanks

m4rkw7 · 16 Oct 2010 at 23:59

I myself favour wired, all day long vs wireless.

What i'd probably do is have a switch and a router on each floor. If necessary you could have a router (home built, Linux) as a central point. A file server is also of use.