Topic: NTL(uk) and sme

[Tom G]

Hello,

Im attempting to get my (shared) flat wired for the net. There will be 5 people all with various windows computers, who are all heavy users at the moment. I think broadband (ADSL or cable) is the only sensible option for a connection and sme seems to be perfect for the task or sharing the resources.

However before i leap, does anyone have experience with either BT openworld ADSL or NTL cable modems and sme 5.1.2 or 5.5?

Im particularly interested in info about NTL as i think that the others have allready agreed a contract with NTL.

I have had some (bad) experiences of getting linux (redhat 7.1, 7.2 and various mandrakes) to talk to a NTL cable modem. I know that sme is based on redhat, so any help, pointers, FAQs would be much appreciated.


Thanks

Tom

[Chris Sarginson]

if it's a usb cable modem, you wont have a hope without customing your sme to death.  Your best bet would be smoothwall GPL, which i run at home just in front of my sme server .  Smoothwall has been specifically designed for this, and it's configured through a web interface.  It's a 20 meg download from the smoothwall site (www.smoothwall.org).  

No probs
Chris

[brian read]

Or perhaps www.ipcop.org  This is a fork from smoothwall, and is still going somewhere on the GPL front (smoothwall is going commercial).

[Tom G]

Hi,

im planning on using the ethernet option on the cable modem. I think that NTL still offer model with ethernet.

Tom

[Andy Parkinson]

I use NTL with an ethernet cable modem and have done now for about a year. It works beautifully and gives me an ip address which hasn't changed in six months. Also the good thing about it is the fact that it doesn't use NAT making external access to the SME box nice and easy.
Setting up once the cable modem is installed is as easy as going throught the SME  setup and making sure that the network card connected to the cable modem is set to dhcp. If you do go the adsl route then you would need the ethernet option which can tend to be more expensive. Some ISP's will give you a wires only option so that you can have your own modem so the only difference in the cost is in the initial purchase of the modem. If you do get the usb version it usuall comes a s a NAT product and is a nightmare to set up under SME.

If you do get the Cable setup and need any assistance please feel free to mail me


Andy Parkinson

[T-Dog]

I've been running sme 4.1 on a P75 64mb RAM 20gig HD on NTL cable.

The setup was pretty easy although I did have to reset the modem which was a little more tricky (pin goes in the back at the same time as hitting the power button if I remember right but NTL will tell you how to do this if you need to)

We have 5 other computers connecting through e-smith and no problems, ok for FTP if you need access to files on the move and with the low specs you could salvage an old system. After installation you wont need GFX card, monitor, keybord or mouse... Just turn it on and leave it!