What to do with old P100 PC?

[alan]

My home LAN has 2 AMD 266 and 1 AMD 350 on Win98. I also have an old Compaq running an original Pentium 100 with a 1.2G HD on the LAN. It has 96 MG FPM RAM. It runs Win95. Currently it is used as a low priority workstation in my bedroom so I can do simple things like check email, check the news on the web and chat. Although I have Office97 installed, the lack of power prohibits me from doing any of my work, I do a lot of Powerpoint and photo editing, because it runs like a dog.
My question is this... I am currently running Sygate Modem Sharing on a host AMD266 connected to a cable modem. I was wondering if it makes any sense or performance difference on the rest of the LAN if I made the Compaq P100 the host and moved the AMD266 into the bedroom. That way I can utilize the 'puting power of the AMD266 Win98 rather than leaving it untouched as a host. Since the host is on 24/7 I would rather have the oldest PC "burn out" rather than one of the newer models. With a 1.2G HD it hardly has any room to do anything beyond the O/S, a few games and accessories. Plus when I have the buds over for LAN gaming someone is banished into the dark netherworld of the storage room where the AMD 266 host is currently stationed because the Compaq P100 can only play Duke Nukem (still a damn good multiplayer classic). Is a P100 good enough to serve as host for the rest of the LAN?

[reboot]

Absolutely!

[Charliey]

If youre feeling really adventureous, you could set up linux on the P100, and use that for the internet sharing.

[archie]

Alan, would you please post your results after you've tried it for a while ... [I've been thinking of doing the same thing with a P100 c/w 40 MB RAM].

[HAL9000]

I agree with Charliey, dump Linux on it and run it to share your internet and to act as a firewall.

[alan]

I probably won't attempt the conversion anytime soon as I am in the middle of remodeling my home. When I get a nice chunk of free time I will take a look at moving my NIC from AMD266 for the cable modem to the P100 reload Sygate and I believe I'm all good to go!

[mosquito]

I'm running Sygate on a P75 just fine. I even used a 486 DX2 for a year. There is no performance loss. (sygate uses no caching, so the performance of the proxy machine is not important.)

[Xayd]

Heh, while on the subject, if that old box takes up too much space, check out this modern, advanced, firewall "solution".

http://www.jrcs.co.uk/PB-FileServer/PizzaPhotos.html

So that's what those pizza boxes are for when you're done...

Xayd

[Dave22]

Originally posted by archie Alan, would you please post your results after you've tried it for a while ... [I've been thinking of doing the same thing with a P100 c/w 40 MB RAM].

heh.. that's funny. I've got an old DEC P100 w/ 40 RAM also - it serves as my firewall/NAT running Linux.

[archie]

Dave22, you keep inspiring me. I may just give this plan a shot yet.

[M. A. Dockter]

I had a P133 with 32MB of RAM running regular Win2000 ICS...no problems.

[CragStar]

Alan, if you do choose to run linux on your spare comp for a firewall then you may want to consider Smoothwall. From what I have heard it is pretty impressive, designed for low spec machines, but very powerful and fast.

[slewis1972]

Yeh,

I have got an old P120 with 32meg ram running with Win98SE on a 230mb Hard Drive. Thansk to 98lite from http://www.98lite.net, I had it installed without web integration, IE5 and other bits and pieces and it flies. I am using Sygate ICS with Stgate Firewall, and have had no problems with sharring the connection.

Scott