[sinebubble]

I'm thinking about picking up a cube to use as a linux server. I need two ethernet ports, however. My guess is that the nic's in the cube are on the motherboard. Does anyone know if this is true? If not, is it a standard PCI slot? Also, can a PCMCIA card be put into the slot used for the airport card?

[Jamie]

Originally posted by sinebubble:
<STRONG>Also, can a PCMCIA card be put into the slot used for the airport card?</STRONG>

No, Airport Card slot can only be used for Airport Card. Nothing else I'm afraid.

Jamie

[luap82]

i read somewhere of someone doing a mod to achieve what you are talking about. sorry i cant give much more info, but i guess now you know that it is possible. maybe if you did a search on the forums.
-luap

Originally posted by sinebubble:
<STRONG>I'm thinking about picking up a cube to use as a linux server. I need two ethernet ports, however. My guess is that the nic's in the cube are on the motherboard. Does anyone know if this is true? If not, is it a standard PCI slot? Also, can a PCMCIA card be put into the slot used for the airport card?</STRONG>

Brian,
I no nothing about Linux or why you would need 2 NICs for a Server (Hub or Switch wouldn't work?). What strikes me as odd is, why use a 1300.00 Cube as a server when you could buy the base G4 Tower for 300.00 more? I mean the tower has a fan to handle the heat better. It has 10/100/1000 (yes gig)Ethernet built in. It has 4 PCI slots for more cards. It uses 133-bus speed for faster RAM, as well as 4 RAM slots vs. the Cube's 3. Plus a bay for another hard drive. I'm not posting this to be a d!ck, just this is the second post I've seen for a dual NIC/Ethernet jack on a Cube. I have a 233 G3 tower with 3 unused PCI slots and I laugh every time I here someone say something about the Cube not being expandable. That’s why my old tower is setting on the floor as a server and my Cube is setting in front of me on top of my desk. The Cube fit my needs as-is because, I would rather buy a new non-up-gradable computer every two years then attempt to upgrade or add something every 6 months. I find that it is actually more economical for me to save my $ by not buying upgrade stuff and purchase a new machine when I save up enough.
Here is what I mean, take my 233 G3 Tower and add the following:

150.00 larger hard drive
125.00 OS X
175.00 DVD or CD-r/rw
100.00 USB & Fire wire card
75.00 New Mouse(its on its last leg)
150.00 Kicka$$ video card

775.00 total spent right?
I now have a slow G3 233 Tower that I might have compatibility issues with all this stuff added.

Now for a few hundred $ more , I have 2 machines, not one. And I have all the stuff I want/need.
Sorry for the rambling, just my 2 cents! Good luck with your decision!

[sinebubble]

Originally posted by &lt;libs&gt;:
<STRONG>

Brian,
I no nothing about Linux or why you would need 2 NICs for a Server (Hub or Switch wouldn't work?).
</STRONG>

First off, I'm Solaris Engineer. I currently have an x86 Solaris box at home that is wearing down, takes up way too much space and becoming a bit loud. I am going to replace it with either an Netra X1 (sparc) or a Cube running Linux. The Cube is quiet, takes up very little space (I live in SF) and is sorta cool looking. The X1 is almost as good looking, almost as small and could be made to be almost as quiet. Same price. Speed is not an issue for me.

I would be using the system as a router for my home network, so I would prefer to have two nics. One interface is exposed to the outside, the second interface is connected to a switch. I could do this with one interface, but the solution is a hack and I'm not interested in going that route (no pun intended). I might be able to use the Airport device for a second interface/hub, but then I have to buy cards for all my devices. Hm.

I agree that the tower is a better decision, but not for what I'm looking for.

Again, does anyone know if the nic on built into the motherboard or is in a slot that can be filled with another card?

[mjpaci]

Get a Cobalt (Sun) Qube. It runs Linux, has dual NICs, and a PCI slot. If, however, you want to run it with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, then go for the Apple Cube. No, the Cube doesn't have a PCI slot in which to plug a second ethernet controller.

--Mike

[CubieDubbie]

I have a 450 mhz. Cube. There are no slots of any kind for any expansion. The ethernet connection is part of the motherboard assembly as are the other connections involved. The slot for the Airport card is on one side of Cube inner casing. As far as I know and from what I saw when installing the Airport card, the Airport card is the only thing that will fit in that slot. It is a small flat slot with a connector at the back end that is fitted only for the Airport card. There is a thin metal that locks down over the Airport card to hold it in place. The obvious reason for very little expansion possibilities in the Cube, is the heat factor. Someone wrote a message back that they believed that you could even get a Dual processor in a Cube, not likely. The heat factor would be way too much for the Cube to stand. Anyway, for your problem I doubt the Cube would work if you have to have a second ethernet connection. Obviously not knowing much about routers, I can't speak too much on that subject. All I have is 3 iBooks with Airport cards and a Cube with an Airport card, and of course the Airport base Station.
There is just to mention a possibility that there was some mention of a Cube expansion chasis months ago. I don't have any idea whether it was ever made or not, or exactly what it was for. But, if interested you could search for it. Other than that, I can say from my own Cube experiences that as far as expansion is concerned, other than expanding with firewire and usb; there really is not much expanding that can be accomplished with the Cube. You can expand the video card to 32 meg's., the internal hard drive can be expanded, the memory can be expanded, an mAirport card can be installed, and thats really about it.

[sinebubble]

Originally posted by mjpaci:
<STRONG>Get a Cobalt (Sun) Qube. It runs Linux, has dual NICs, and a PCI slot. If, however, you want to run it with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, then go for the Apple Cube. No, the Cube doesn't have a PCI slot in which to plug a second ethernet controller.

--Mike</STRONG>

Mike,
I've long looked at the Qube, but I'm unclear how much the system can be modified. It seems more like an appliance than anything else. Rather expensive, too. The base configuration is unacceptable. I would probably get an Netra X1 before a Qube.

Both the cube and the netra are very quiet and cool PCs. However, for an even cooler and 'more router-like' options, check out the 'set top box' from these guys: http://www.gctglobal.com

Its the same hardware as a web-surfer pro, if you are an i-opener fan ... but not butchered (has a working ethernet port and IDE header). I have one of these in my closet. Its near silent. Kinda eery to turn it on and not hear anything .... At any rate, as I said, it'll take a laptop (2.5inch) IDE disk, or a Disk on chip from M-systems. Mine currently runs with a 2gig laptop drive running OpenBSD, but i had it running Linux just fine too. The CPU doesn't use a fan, runs at 233mhz, and is x86 based. Its also cheap, about $300. It has a shared PCI/ISA slot, so you could very easily add a $10 3com nic of your choice (I had a PCI one laying around). Then you have a very cheap dual-ethernet router, and while it looks no where near as cool as a Cube or an X1, Its a hell of a lot cheaper! (its going to sit in a closet anyway right? Thats where mine is, sort of a mini-datacenter).

Mine has been routing for my girlfriend's and my PC's, going out through my cable modem. OpenBSD handles the Overloaded NAT (to use cisco speak) and firewalling (and is also free!).

[chicken_tastes_good]

remembering the ill fated Dell WebPC and its lack of NIC and 5 USB ports, I recall that ethernet connectivity with the WebPC was to be via a USB to ethernet adapter

So I went to Outpost.com and searched "USB ethernet" (sans quotes) and came up with a couple of hits

Perhaps this (or a similar product) would work for you http://shop2.outpost.com/product/67038

I would appreciate knowing if you do go this route and if it works, as I would like to tackle a similar project using a rev a iMac (one NIC, no expandablility)
chicken_tastes_good at hotmail

will probaby work fine chicken ... as long as the OS supports it! (I've no idea the state of USB NIC support under OS9 or OSX ... Works pretty good under linux and most BSDs though).

[sinebubble]

Originally posted by &lt;stepson&gt;:
<STRONG>will probaby work fine chicken ... as long as the OS supports it! (I've no idea the state of USB NIC support under OS9 or OSX ... Works pretty good under linux and most BSDs though).</STRONG>

Interesting, because I would be using it under unix....

[chicken_tastes_good]

true, the Mac OS might recognise it as a usb ethernet adapter but prolly doesn't have the drivers to interface with it. Another search and some poking around on www.belkin.com (who make such an adapter - listed as a PC product) seems to support this fear.

Would an adapted to PPC linux driver work? Would a USB ethernet driver for x86 linux be included in a PPC distribution? hmmm

Personally I'd be running OS X on the rev a iMac - wonder if OS X would be able to make use of such an adapter?

[CyberDave]

Originally posted by chicken_tastes_good:
<STRONG>true, the Mac OS might recognise it as a usb ethernet adapter but prolly doesn't have the drivers to interface with it. Another search and some poking around on www.belkin.com (who make such an adapter - listed as a PC product) seems to support this fear.

Would an adapted to PPC linux driver work? Would a USB ethernet driver for x86 linux be included in a PPC distribution? hmmm

Personally I'd be running OS X on the rev a iMac - wonder if OS X would be able to make use of such an adapter?</STRONG>

Apple's latest USB Driver Development Kit has sample USB Ethernet drives. I have no idea if they work, though. I won't stop you if you want to try :-)

CyberDave

if its a linux kernel, they all have pretty much the same kernel drivers, although some people have added ppc specific stuff that isn't included in the main tree. If a driver works under x86 linux, it should work under ppc linux as well. Grab an ISO from www.linuxiso.org for a ppc linux distro and give it a shot! Will only cost you the price of a blank CDR (and a cd-burner if you don't already have one ).

[cube-dude]

Transferring to our Linux on Mac forum for additional ideas and comments there.