[NBLUG/talk] How Low Can We Go?

[Lincoln Peters]

Stephen Cilley wrote:
> The only piece of networking hardware it has on it is
> a dialup modem, so this should be fun.
> I don't even know what a null modem is.  There are
> three ports on the back, a serial, a parallel, and
> then one thing I have never seen before in my life
> which has two rows of seperated pins, it's very odd
> looking.

A null modem connection is basically a special serial cable that 
connects two computers together (its wiring only differs from a standard 
serial cable by two pins).  It's faster than dial-up, but just barely 
(you'd be lucky to get 115Kb/s).  You can get the cable at HSC Electronics.

> Anyway, I think I'm going to have to use some floppy
> based install, because the rest seems a little over my
> head.

My suggestion was to do a floppy-based install to get a minimal system, 
then use e.g. a null modem link to get a fully-functional system, 
although Kyle is probably right that a PCMCIA network card would be a 
better way to go (much faster than null modem).  Anything more than a 
minimal installation from floppies would probably take hundreds of 
floppies (literally!).

I would avoid installing over a wireless network.  Getting wireless 
networking to work even on a fully-configured system is hard enough!


-- 
Lincoln Peters
<sampln at sbcglobal.net>

-- I have seen the FUN --