Alternatives to Software Base Station

alexachucarro

alexachucarro

I'm 1/4 Basque you know?...
I want to use my G4 as a Software Base Station for a new iMac. I know all I need is two cards (one per machine) and that's it.

But, does anyone know of an alternative using Ethernet instead. As it's much cheaper (and faster!). Bit more hassle though!

Please advise:confused:
 
What he wants to have the G4 serve up the internet connection for the iMac.

If that's the case, you have two choices.

First, if you're on OS X, you need to buy a second Ethernet card. This will act as your G4's connection to the net. Next, grab an OReilly book on BSD, it will mention setting up IP routing. Should work under Darwin. There may be a few ports out there that already do it.

So, you're looking at:

100.00 for the Enet card
30 for the book.

2 airport cards are 200

you save 70 bucks.

And you get a migraine to boot!
 
Originally posted by jackshedd
So, you're looking at:

100.00 for the Enet card
30 for the book.

2 airport cards are 200

you save 70 bucks.

And you get a migraine to boot!
Click to expand...

100 bucks for an ethernet card???? Where are you buying your stuff from? Mine cost 29.99, and there are some even cheaper than that.
 
well I may just opt to buy two Cards. I get them at Accademic price anyway, and it sounds a hell of alot easier than dabbling with BSD and all that bollocks.

AirPort cards cost about £70 each, and the luxury of now cables and the coolness is very appealing. I didn't realise that it'd be so much hassle.

And yes i want the G4 to serve the internet to the iMac as well as itself.

If anyone else has any other ideas i'd really appreciate it.

Oh and 10.1.1 is fine. No hitches whatsoever. Finder is a tad snappier but that's about it. (I don't use Mail).
 
By looking at your setup, I'd suggest you get an Airport. Its a bit tad expensive I know, but from a single point of connection it serves its purpose well in your environment. The new Airport now supports internet connection sharing as well as a dialup modem so its a good choice.

Whats your internet connection be like? Dialup or DSL/T1/ISDN?

If it is DSL or one of the high speed internetworks, you could use gNAT. A routing software for Mac OS X. It can be found here http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=10619&db=mac. I don't know whether Airport cards support peer to peer connections but I have worked with tons of Wintel wireless devices and they have peer to peer support.

Good Luck
 
Originally posted by testuser

<b>Wireless</b>
This requires an Airport base station and at least one airport card (the desktop could be connected by cable). Price $350 US (or $450 with two cards). Speed is up to 11 Mbps.
You can find less costly options (that work just as well). For example, I think Linksys has wireless routers for $180 and cards for $75 each. (~$250-325)
[/B]
Click to expand...

OR, setup my G4 as a SOFTWARE BASE STATION. That way the iMac is tricked into thinking that there is a Base Station and therefore can access the web. All you need is a card per machine. GB£65 each and a powerful Mac. ie If i was using a G3 with 10 iMacs running of it. The G3 would slow down. But seeing as it's going to be one iMac and i have an 867, there should be no problem.

Total cost GB£130 (US$200)

I way opt for the router. Hadn't thought of that. Nice one testuser!
 
Originally posted by testuser
I hadn't realized that the Airport cards could speak directly to one another. This is really cool. Would you have the same range as with the hardware base station? Does this work only with Apple's cards, or can you get it to work with other 802.11b cards? And when the 802.11a cards come out, will they support these peer-to-peer connections?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's part of the OS. I learnt all about it when I worked with Apple in Oz. If you can get a normal PC to ride on an AirPort network. Then it would also see the Software base station. The range is a tad shorter, but nothing to cry about.

But don't forget that the serving Mac needs to be powerful and always on of the nodes are to be able to surf the net.

But unfortunately at the moment they haven't included the feature in 10.1.1 or less:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106507

But we can only hope.
 
I find gNAT to be buggy. I use BrickHouse and it does the IP forwarding (Soft. Base Station) with no problem and has Firewall options. The assistant makes it all so easy.

Not that gNAT is a bad product, it is just the BrickHouse is the app that is keeping me in OS X 10.1, instead of 9.2.1 :)
 
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