Airport, OS X Server, and a bunch more...

[Go3iverson]

Hey all,

About to get my first apartment out of college and I'm trying to find the best way to wire up all of my computers..and my roommate's too, if I have time!

I was thinking of going with Earthlink DSL and wireless. I have a TiBook that has an AirPort card, the rest of my machines don't have wirless cards (quicksilver G4 (10.2.4), PowerMac G4 (OS X Server (10.1.4), iBook, and a PC I built (Athlon XP).

Couple questinos/ideas....

One, is it possible to use a Linksys wireless solution? I'd guess the Airport would be more compatable with the Macs though...

Here's my crazy idea...

Take the modem Earthlink gives me and plug the Airport into it. TiBook is good to go. Buy an AirPort card for the OS X Server (will it run off of Airport?!) and plug that machine in as the uplink on my DLink switch. Then plug the iBook, Quicksilver, and Athlon machines into the switch that's using the X Server as it's provider....

Can it work?
Can OS X Server connect via Airport?
Will it work well?

Any better suggestions? Comments? All are welcome!

[nickn]

This is what I'd do I think :

Earthlink Modem

|

8 or 16 port switch

|

Airport Base AND 802.11b Access Point
(if you already have one,
if not go with the 802.11b
and save some cash)
-------------------------------------

With the correct modem/router this should work, I have a zyxel 641 which I used with earthlink (it's a combination modem/router) that did this great when I had earthlink/mindspring.

I have all the hardware from when I had this setup like this (router/modem, 4 port hub, dlink wireless access point) if you are interested make an offer.

That's it for now

[nickn]

Just to add to this...

Now I have my internet connection via a 11mbps wireless connection to my place of employment, although I only get 5.5mbps until I get a stronger antenna (who needs 11mbps in their house?)

And I have 6 machines...5 windows (i know i know..roommates, and I don't have my powerbook yet which will be my first mac) and one freebsd machine

One of the windows machines acts as our router and has 2 nics, one going to a 16 port switch, other going to a wireless 802.11b antenna...than we have all the machines connected to the switch.

I haven't decided yet whether I will buy a airport base station or not (probably just find a 802.11b base station like I already have for the powerbook) and since the whole campus is also 802.11b I will be able to use my powerbook ANYWHERE at home, and anywhere at school, and also anywhere at work...pretty nice..all going through the same internet connection.

Just wanted to give everyone an idea why I wasn't using that zyxel prestige 641 anymore and all.