Home network question...
 

Adolescent Angry wants a PC in his room for gaming (for "gaming" see: Porn).

I've got the schnitz together - pc, cat5 crossover etc but here's were Zing comes in (hopefully).

Can I network his machine to boot off my OS or am I talking "bonkers"?

Cheers in advance.

Re: Home network question...
 

Under normal circumstances each PC needs it's own Operating System. If it's a case that you need a PC to remotely boot up, if it's been shut down (maybe you are using internet connection sharing for example and hte sharing computer gets turned off by the user), some modern PCs have functionality in the network card to enable a remote LAN wake up call. Never tried it, but it'll need settings on both the BIOS and the network card, with a sufficiently modern PC that in fact the LAN card always stays with some power even if the PC appears off.

In some office environments you can get a "thin client" type setup whereby the PC relies on a networked OS. Might be possible with some versions of Linux, but not under windows afaik.

Re: Home network question...
 

As Rob said it can be done (and is done frequently in some circumstances), but normally requires Linux. AFAIK you can do it in with VMware but isn't likely to be free (or even reasonably priced, i'd guess).

You can create an XP live disk. That way you boot up with the same, fresh copy of the OS off the CD. As no changes are stored, you don't have to worry about changes being made viruses etc. Also, I think you can choose what extra software is pre-loaded, but i'm not sure.

Re: Home network question...
 

Thanks for the answers guys - seems like a very technical issue - perhaps I'd be better off buying him a few back issues of Razzle & Readers wives?

I suppose I could simplify things by just creating a home network, adding him and allowing him to share?

If I do that would it be possible for him to run Counter Strike on his PC upstairs via my machine downstairs if you know what I mean ('cause I certainly don't).

Re: Home network question...
 

I used to have an old win 98 machine with NO software, connected to a winxp with all the software and internet connection (via crossover cable), and I used to play Red Alert and other 'gaming' software on the win 98 machine from the winxp machine. Worked a treat!

Re: Home network question...
 

it will be slow he will need the game software on his pc really. What is the spec of the machine? Ideally you would want xp as this would make running a ad hoc network easier but if it has enough ram there are live versions of linux or windows that run in ram very quickly but idealy you would want a router to ensure distribution across the lan worked correctly. This of course would only be any good for internet and office stuff and any saves would have to be on a different machine or on a hard drive in the machine. All in all it would be simpler to install windows

There is a live vista lite that runs from a pen drive if the pc would support booting from usb(also some nix distros can work from one)

Re: Home network question...
 

Simplest thing would be to add a router. They're cheap as chips these days. That way you have independant access to the 'net and you don't have to share access to your pc - a big plus if he's going to go exploring dodgy porn sites.
This means also that he has access to the net even if your machine is switched off.

Re: Home network question...
 

+1
It sounds to me Mr Angry as if your trying to over complicate things.

Install XP,buy router....or install second nic in your machine and your lad will have all the porn access he requires while still being able to play his games.:)

Once you`ve done that then you can have all the fun & games of finding out which services & protocols etc are the best for keeping an eye on things without moving off your a**e:angel:

Of course plonking ones backside down in front of sons pc now & again does that but it`s nowhere near the same fun.:)

Re: Home network question...
 

Mr A, its not really clear to me what you really want?, is it a simple and cheapest way to connect a 2 machine LAN network were both can browse the net?.

or is there a reason you dont want to put a harddrive and OS in AA's PC upstairs?.

for a simple network for two windows PC machines it works but you need to keep your machine on as the master to route the web to his machine or he looses the net.
"===" =straight through rj45 cable
"=x=" =cross-over/xover rj45 cable

VM-CM/xADSL-modem<===>your Master-Machine network card1.

your MM network-card2<=x=>upstairs AAmachines network card1.

as you can see, your machine has two network cards in it, then you run the 'network setup wizard' on your machine and it will/should chose the network card1 as the gateway to the net and the network card2 as the LAN connection, your end is done.

go upstairs and run the 'network setup wizard' on his machine and this time pick the this machine connects through another.

modem===master=x=AA is the cheapest way, but he cant get through to the net if your machines off OR you pull out the x-over cable from your second network card for some reason ;).

your machine is acting as the router for his X-over rj45 connected machine.

but as already said , its better just to get a cheap 10/100Mbit router, although id say buy a gigabit router today if your starting new as many 10/100 routers dont or cant really cope with 20Mbit/24Mbit VM/xADSL.

you can do it wirelessly if you prefer to do away with wires, but again better to buy the newest 11n today for longer term use, its will OC work for the old kit , it just takes longer to copy files to and from your machines and their shared drives/dirs.

if your trying to keep the noise down on the upstairs machine by not installing a large drive or 3, then theres aways freeNAS and useing iSCSI with that, to get a remote drive seen on the other end/the windowsXP as a local installed drive but again thats yet another PC stuck somewere out of the way, and a little bit of setting up but not to bad.

and your still going to need some form of bootable storage to use that, it can be a small HD, a USB2 key or external HD enclosure, 2 and half inch drives are very quiet for this purpose and they come in 160Gig sizes now and these hds work great if your after quiet/silent machine, but slower access OC.

using iSCSI, it will be seen as just a normal drive, and you can format it as you please and install all your/his apps/games as usual, its just slower as your running over cheap 1 gigabit network cards, not a local PATA/SATA cable.

if you really want to network boot a driverless machine, there are linux liveCDs out there were you could run as a VMware or qemu.exe CD/HD image on your machine for remote booting any LAN connected PC thats set for that in its onboard network card bios, but thats way to messy for right now, as it takes some setting up and you are giving away a lot of your machines CPU time and ram to the VMware/QEmu emulation.