Have my parents old computer. What do I do with it?

[Dtrain323i]

It's an HP with a Pentium 4 and a 200gb HDD. What should I do with it? I'd like to gut it and turn it into a HTPC.

[CaffeinePowered]

HP Cases aren't the best for gutting, not to mention an HTPC case being much much smaller.

Id considering making a linux gateway with it though, but that would be something HeK would know more how to do

[HeK]

There are two options:

1 - The HTPC:

• Buy the cheapest GeForce 200-series or higher card with HDMI output (Must be nVidia, only they have proper mp4 hardware decoding)
  
• Buy an HP media remote (or similar)
  
• Install XBMCbuntu: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMCbuntu
  

2 - The Gateway:

• Buy another network card.
  
• Install pfSense: http://www.pfsense.org/
  
• Profit! Seriously, pfSense is by far the best gateway package I've used, and I have used many different and very expensive alternatives.
  

[Surf314]

Anyone try boxee for HTPC software?

[HeK]

Anyone try boxee for HTPC software?

It's just modified XBMC

[WaR1761]

One part about HTPC's is that they should be quiet... not sure about your old computer but I know my old P4 era comp was loud. Even the stupid disc drive was exsesivly loud.

If your family likes to cook or mess around in the kitchen you could throw it in a cabinet and hang a monitor up for a reference computer.

[Dtrain323i]

I dunno. I may just keep it as is and use it to play old games that won't work on Win7. I'd love to get Mechwarrior 3 and X-Wing Alliance

[zaneyard]

2 - The Gateway:

• Buy another network card.
  
• Install pfSense: http://www.pfsense.org/
  
• Profit! Seriously, pfSense is by far the best gateway package I've used, and I have used many different and very expensive alternatives.
  

do it

i did this with my old dell and i never have to restart it to clear ip tables

[Kirby]

I dunno. I may just keep it as is and use it to play old games that won't work on Win7. I'd love to get Mechwarrior 3 and X-Wing Alliance

MW3: Mercenaries is the best ever. I still play through it to this day from time to time, never gets old.

I have some 100% legit and not-non legit copies of almost all windows versions, incl. 3.0, NT 5.0, 95, 98(SE), etc. If you need an old OS for oldschool games let me know, they're all <800MB, about a workday of upload from my connection.

[at0m]

[quote author=HeK link=topic=5287.msg189887#msg189887 date=1293559737]
2 - The Gateway:

• Buy another network card.
  
• Install pfSense: http://www.pfsense.org/
  
• Profit! Seriously, pfSense is by far the best gateway package I've used, and I have used many different and very expensive alternatives.
  

do it

i did this with my old dell and i never have to restart it to clear ip tables


[/quote]would this work better than my WRT54G running DD-WRT?

[zaneyard]

[quote author=zaneyard link=topic=5287.msg190008#msg190008 date=1293598528]
[quote author=HeK link=topic=5287.msg189887#msg189887 date=1293559737]
2 - The Gateway:

• Buy another network card.
  
• Install pfSense: http://www.pfsense.org/
  
• Profit! Seriously, pfSense is by far the best gateway package I've used, and I have used many different and very expensive alternatives.
  

do it

i did this with my old dell and i never have to restart it to clear ip tables


[/quote]would this work better than my WRT54G running DD-WRT?
[/quote]
yes

[HeK]

[quote author=CUBA LIBRE link=topic=5287.msg190189#msg190189 date=1293697612]
[quote author=zaneyard link=topic=5287.msg190008#msg190008 date=1293598528]
[quote author=HeK link=topic=5287.msg189887#msg189887 date=1293559737]
2 - The Gateway:

• Buy another network card.
  
• Install pfSense: http://www.pfsense.org/
  
• Profit! Seriously, pfSense is by far the best gateway package I've used, and I have used many different and very expensive alternatives.
  

do it

i did this with my old dell and i never have to restart it to clear ip tables


[/quote]would this work better than my WRT54G running DD-WRT?
[/quote]
yes
[/quote]

x1000000

It's better then my Fortinet 60C, and that's a $1k Enterprise FGPA-based gateway.

[Surf314]

Just out of curiosity why does one need a gateway like that at home? Also what is a gateway?

[Kirby]

Just out of curiosity why does one need a gateway like that at home? Also what is a gateway?

A gateway is a machine that sits on the edge of your network, normally providing a dedicated firewall, intrusion detection and attack mitigation. (when talking about a full blown PC gateway anyway... gateway in the loosest term can also apply to a $35 router, which obviously has little to none of this)


When you're getting to the level of using a PC for a gateway, it's normally replacing where your router would be sitting in your network. The point of this setup, or even HeK's using a dedicated piece of enterprise class equipment is normally self-assigned nerd points.

[HeK]

The point of this setup, or even HeK's using a dedicated piece of enterprise class equipment is normally self-assigned nerd points.

Unless your $35 cots router lacks a decent NAT model or has a uselessly tiny connection tracking queue, either of which cause random network weirdness, especially while using P2P software.

Once you get to a point of 4-5 computers in use in a single household (lets say, by family members, etc), you reaching the maximum conntrack table size of a basic hardware device. They only can juggle 1500-2000 connections at once.
Loading a single webpage will create 10-50 new connections, almost one for each element in that page. Your messenger will have 3-5, steam has and other 5, and so on. If you start a torrent, that's a connection per seed and another or two per peer. It's very easy to hit the limit and which point your gateway will just stop accepting new connections.

Don't even get me started on shitty nat helpers.....

[zaneyard]

yeah my wrt54gs has like 512 of available ram on it

my dell desktop using pfsense has 2.5 gigs

[at0m]

yeah my wrt54gs has like 512 of available ram on it

my dell desktop using pfsense has 2.5 gigs

Try 16MB. If it's an old one, it's got 32.

[Kirby]

[quote author=Kirby, the Ghost of Kritzmas Past link=topic=5287.msg190242#msg190242 date=1293738022]
The point of this setup, or even HeK's using a dedicated piece of enterprise class equipment is normally self-assigned nerd points.

Unless your $35 cots router lacks a decent NAT model or has a uselessly tiny connection tracking queue, either of which cause random network weirdness, especially while using P2P software.

Once you get to a point of 4-5 computers in use in a single household (lets say, by family members, etc), you reaching the maximum conntrack table size of a basic hardware device. They only can juggle 1500-2000 connections at once.
Loading a single webpage will create 10-50 new connections, almost one for each element in that page. Your messenger will have 3-5, steam has and other 5, and so on. If you start a torrent, that's a connection per seed and another or two per peer. It's very easy to hit the limit and which point your gateway will just stop accepting new connections.

Don't even get me started on shitty nat helpers.....
[/quote]


I think you think I'm h8ing on PC gateway use? That seemed almost terse  :-\


The PC that my current gaming rig replaced is a now a quad NIC dedicated pfSense gateway, it replaced an old dual NIC pfSense machine


Surprised no mentions of jumbo frame support yet either.

[zaneyard]

[quote author=zaneyard link=topic=5287.msg190249#msg190249 date=1293741363]
yeah my wrt54gs has like 512 of available ram on it

my dell desktop using pfsense has 2.5 gigs

Try 16MB. If it's an old one, it's got 32.
[/quote]
see my point

[Cloud_9ine]

So say I was wanting to set up a gateway to replace a Wireless/Ethernet Router. I would get another NIC and get a switch and wireless Access point and set it up such that: Modem -> Gateway -> AP & Switch -> Machines on Network

Right? So I would have to get myself a switch and AP as well?