The Best Kind of Nerd is Unnecessarily Complicated
or Overkill
As most of you are probably aware, Sarah and I moved into a two bedroom apartment this past weekend. With all of this extra room, my thoughts naturally went to planning a massive network for Sarah's desktop, my three desktops, and my laptop. [1] I wanted to network as many of the computers above as I could with a minimal budget. So wifi was out; a router and five wireless cards were roughly "way the hell" out of budget. In addition to the computers above, I also had a 5-port ethernet switch on my hands. After scribbling on a few post-it notes, I finally arrived at the following setup [2]:
____| Laptop (XP/FC5) |
|
|____| Dell Desktop (XP) |
| Cable | ___ | G4 Mac | ___ | 5-port |___|
|Outlet | | Server (OSX) | | Switch | |____| Sarah's Dell Desktop (XP) | [3]
|
|____| Old World G3 Desktop (Kub 6.06) | [4]
Total cost: about $7 (~$6 for the extra network card needed in the G4 + ~$1 for the two wall outlet plates).
The question "Is all of that really necessary?" has been posed several times recently. You're damn right it is. The G4 server provides 80 GB of storage for pictures, backup documents, and in the future, it may be wired to my stereo to provide gigs of mp3/ogg goodness. If I should ever get anywhere on my prime number cracking program idea, I should also be able to find some sort of open source program that allows me to reap the idle CPU time from all the computers on the network to run the Riemann code.
Oh, it's good to be a nerd.
[1] - Sadly, I think I've fried something on my fourth desktop (a G3 tower). I should have listened when it said "Stop repeatedly initializing my old HDD and then fucking up installation-attempts for operating systems that my architecture can't handle.")
[2] - If you can tell me how many times " " appears in the following diagram, I feel as sorry for you as you should feel for me.
[3] - The greatest challenge in this entire setup was getting an ethernet cable from my room to her room. Although her room is adjacent to mine, it would require at least 30 ft. of cable to go out my door, down the hall, and into her room to her computer. Luckily, I have enough of my Dad's problem-solving brain in me to find a shorter route. The cable outlets in our rooms are run out of one of the plastic electrical boxes in the wall. I bought two blank outlet faceplates at Walmart and drilled two holes in each one. The plate in my room has the cable coming in through one hole and the ethernet cable from the switch going to Sarah's Dell threaded through the other. The plate in her room has cable coming in one hole (to her TV) and the ethernet cable from my room, which then goes into the back of her computer.
or Overkill
As most of you are probably aware, Sarah and I moved into a two bedroom apartment this past weekend. With all of this extra room, my thoughts naturally went to planning a massive network for Sarah's desktop, my three desktops, and my laptop. [1] I wanted to network as many of the computers above as I could with a minimal budget. So wifi was out; a router and five wireless cards were roughly "way the hell" out of budget. In addition to the computers above, I also had a 5-port ethernet switch on my hands. After scribbling on a few post-it notes, I finally arrived at the following setup [2]:
____| Laptop (XP/FC5) |
|
|____| Dell Desktop (XP) |
| Cable | ___ | G4 Mac | ___ | 5-port |___|
|Outlet | | Server (OSX) | | Switch | |____| Sarah's Dell Desktop (XP) | [3]
|
|____| Old World G3 Desktop (Kub 6.06) | [4]
Total cost: about $7 (~$6 for the extra network card needed in the G4 + ~$1 for the two wall outlet plates).
The question "Is all of that really necessary?" has been posed several times recently. You're damn right it is. The G4 server provides 80 GB of storage for pictures, backup documents, and in the future, it may be wired to my stereo to provide gigs of mp3/ogg goodness. If I should ever get anywhere on my prime number cracking program idea, I should also be able to find some sort of open source program that allows me to reap the idle CPU time from all the computers on the network to run the Riemann code.
Oh, it's good to be a nerd.
[1] - Sadly, I think I've fried something on my fourth desktop (a G3 tower). I should have listened when it said "Stop repeatedly initializing my old HDD and then fucking up installation-attempts for operating systems that my architecture can't handle.")
[2] - If you can tell me how many times " " appears in the following diagram, I feel as sorry for you as you should feel for me.
[3] - The greatest challenge in this entire setup was getting an ethernet cable from my room to her room. Although her room is adjacent to mine, it would require at least 30 ft. of cable to go out my door, down the hall, and into her room to her computer. Luckily, I have enough of my Dad's problem-solving brain in me to find a shorter route. The cable outlets in our rooms are run out of one of the plastic electrical boxes in the wall. I bought two blank outlet faceplates at Walmart and drilled two holes in each one. The plate in my room has the cable coming in through one hole and the ethernet cable from the switch going to Sarah's Dell threaded through the other. The plate in her room has cable coming in one hole (to her TV) and the ethernet cable from my room, which then goes into the back of her computer.
This is a poor picture of what I'm talking about. Don't ask why it's rotated 90* to the left (the photograph, not the plate). Just don't go there.
[4] - I'm working on this installation as I type this. Current outlook: poor. It's a damn shame, too; Kubuntu 6.06 looks sexy as hell. At least it recognizes the DHCP action coming out of the G4/switch combo.
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