Home Network

[Antar Bolaeisk]

First off, let me preface this by saying I know very little about home networking but am about to jump into the deep end here very shortly.

We're getting broadband installed from Fastcom, not sure if I'm allowed to post a link or not but let's just say it's an irish company so it's web address identifies it as such.

What I'm looking for in a network:

8 access ports (Wired), pretty much one for each room.
Wireless access
File/printer sharing among the six computers, five on various editions of XP and one on Vista.
Internet gaming and gaming between the computers.

Is all of this possible using a home network or just a pipe dream?
What sort of hardware should I be looking at?
I have an oldish pc (No. 7) doing nothing at the minute, would it be best to set this up as a server or is there no need?

Money, while not an issue is a secondary constraint on the system installed.

Thank you in advance for any help,

Antar.

 

[Gaz1988]

This is certainly all possible.

theres 2 ways to go about this really

1) set up a workgroup within your house without the server, which will allow you to share printers/files/internet and play games over LAN.. everything you want to do.

2)set up a workgroup/domain and use your server (need server if u want to use domain), then store all your files etc on the server.

there is actually quite a few ways you could go about setting up your network, but it can all be done easily.

 

[Antar Bolaeisk]

Thanks for the reply guys, was also doing a bit of research in the mean time and came up with;

WRT54G

and

EZXS88W

I think these might do the job hopefully.

Thanks for the reassurance Gaz1988, will the hardware I'm lookin at work as desired?

Antar.

 

[GarethDW]

Yes, the WRT54G router (is also a switch too, with 4 ports) and the EZXS88W will allow you to create your own LAN very easily.

You could just hook the PCs up to the switch, then connect the switch to the router, or you could use 3 of the ports on the router for PCs and the last one for the switch, and then plug any remaining PCs into the switch. Lastly, just hook the router up to your modem via the WAN socket on the back.

If you're getting the WRT54G, you may want to look at changing the firmware on it from the Linksys one to one of the 3rd party ones that are available. I use DD-WRT on my WRT54GL, but there's several others. You'll find that you can add lots of extra functionality to the router by changing the firmware, e.g. DD-WRT allows you to use Quality of Service (QoS) so that HTTP or VOIP or FTP traffic is given priority over, say, bit torrent traffic.

 

[tolien]

If you're going to change the firmware, get a WRT54GL rather than a WRT54G. In fact, even if you're never going to change the firmware, don't get a WRT54G.