My network

Well.... it seems I got a few readers personally I can't believe it but anyways........

as promised a run down of my current network setup

I managed to procure an old Gateway Desktop from 1997 from my dad for free and decided I would give linux a go on it........ since I didn't understand the notion of Distro for computer at that point I stupidly decided to put Fedora 13 on it..... If I had my time again I would probably go for Puppy or one of its derivates as an old Pentium3 computer with 512 RAM and running and old Voodoo 2 is probably not the best thing to be running fedora on lol. But with a bit of help from a friend of mine who works for Red Hat, we managed to get something going, This computer has since become the backbone of everything I do on my network. It is the main repository for all my media and I rely on it for backups. It runs as a ssh server, nfs server, DaaP server, Torrent box and it does it all with surprising stability considering its rough begginings and age. to keep the pay load on it low I have turned of all graphical interfaces and run it as a headless box.

I also managed to procure a slightly younger computer (2004 model) which I run Linux mint on. If my Server is the backbone this computer is the is the workhorse. I got it because the windows install on it had massively corrupted and Dad didn't need it any more so he said if I could get it running it was mine. Well, needless to say all I did was throw in a Linux mint CD wiped the windows of it completely and now it runs like a dream. It's a dual core Pentium 4 with 2gb RAM and an old Geforce  fx5500 in it so again nothing to really right home about but with an essentially out of the box mint on it I have managed to get a dual screen system that runs most of my music into the stereo and is not particularly taxed. It caters to all my browsing needs, and with the help of Libre office has written all of my assignment this semester and converted them to pdf with no problems. So once again Linux has breathed new life into this machine and made it into something I can use efficiently on a daily basis. My only issue has been the corruption of cups, it can probably be easily fixed I just can't be bothered as the mint upgrade comes out soon and that will more than likely do it for me.

Finally, we come to my laptop, this is the machine that comes with me everywhere and has the hard drive I do most of my work on (more on that later). This is a Macbook pro 13 inch running Mac OSX and whilst Mac OS is wonderfully stable and does what I need it to, most times (not all) out of the box, I still find it inherently boring and there have always been little things that gripe me (don't get me started on the media keys and itunes, which I don't use)

Of course the house also has two phones, my Android (Galaxy S) which has been a dream to use for the most part and my girlfriends Iphone 4 (which has not had any issues) and my girlfriend has a laptop but that is used for her purposes and doesn't really use the network.

Ok so firstly, I should point out that a whole new world has been opened up to me through ssh, my laptop harddrive is actually the only hard drive I regularly use (of course it is backed up onto the server and the cloud but that is not regular use in my eyes) even if I am on my desktop i am essentially using it as a seperate processor to do things on my laptop.

Secondly, and I don't think I can talk about this enough, synergy has to be one of, if not the, most useful and productive apps I have ever found. If you don't what it is it allows you to share the mouse and keyboard of one computer with another in other words I can use one keyboard and mouse to control all the computers at my workstation. It also has some limited copy paste ability which is also incredibly handy (pdfs on two screens and libreoffice on another being able to copy text from all computers instantaneously has been a god send). All in all whilst my work station contains three computers (server, desktop, laptop) thanks to ssh, nfs and synergy they all interact together as one. the Server and Laptop hold my files (media and work respectively) and are shared via ssh and nfs. and synergy allows me to only require one keyboard and mouse.

Of course there is also a whole bunch of port forwarding going on so I can access ssh and torrents from outside the network but that is another story.

I do hope to upgrade my desktop and laptop soon and with that will come a complete redesign of my home network. but I will wait to report on that after its done ( if anyone cares lol).

So there you have it.

I like to think I have done rather well for something that has been hacked together from old parts that were set for the junk heap. and I can tell you right now I can't wait to get my next computer which I have decided will be running mint and will be the first time in my life I am not using a propriety OS at all and I can't wait lol.

anyways..... there may be another, non tech related post this afternoon or evening IF and I stress IF I can be bothered but for right now I think this will do.

Hope you enjoyed reading about my set up and as always, suggestions, comments and criticism are more than welcome.

Talk Soon!!!