Full Circle Magazine FR

Over the past eight years, our home network has changed quite a bit. We started with a cable modem connected to a wireless router and a separate “home phone” device (that runs over the provider’s private network, not the Internet) for telephone. At the time, we had two desktop computers, two laptops, and a rarely used netbook. One of the desktops was a workstation, the other initially served as our MythTV PVR. Both laptops were used as workstations, but we roamed around different rooms with them. Wireless coverage was okay, but after about 6 months, the router we’d purchased began dropping the wireless connection a lot so we purchased one of the Linux-based Linksys WRT54GL routers and installed the custom Tomato firmware. After a couple of years, we changed Internet providers. Our old provider had increased their rates and drastically decreased their bandwidth cap. When we changed Internet providers, we also dropped the old provider’s “home phone” service and bought a Grandstream VOIP ATA and signed up with a small VOIP provider. Initially we kept the old provider’s television service, but the two changes we made saved us more than $70/month.

The new Internet provider offered some services the other provider wouldn’t offer home users. Servers were allowed, so for a couple of years we had a third desktop computer on our network running a “The Mana World” server: http://www.themanaworld.org/. About this time, we got rid of the old PC running MythTV (MythDora) and connected the old netbook to our TV and ran XBMC. With the addition of the server PC we decided it was time to move the networking hardware off our TV stand and onto a wall. Bob Jonkman (sobac.com), coworker and computer consultant, had sparked the idea of wall mounting equipment. Most networking devices are easily mountable thanks to mounting holes on the bottom of the devices, but a few, like the Grandstream VOIP ATA, were a bit more difficult to mount. We started by cutting paper in the shape of each device and marking where the mounting holes were for each device on the paper. We then taped each traced sheet of paper to the mounting board and checked that each device would have enough space surrounding it. The trickiest part of the process was mounting the powerbar. The bottom of the powerbar we used had an odd layout for the mounting holes and we ended up putting the screws in the wrong spot because we flipped the paper the wrong way. Screws were screwed right into the paper and mounting board. Once we were sure everything fit snugly we removed the paper from the board and mounted everything onto the screws.

Although we no longer use the Linksys WRT54GL it’s worth mentioning that most Linksys devices of that era have removable rubber feet that can be mounted, then the router attached to the feet - it’s one of the nicest devices we mounted. The Grandstream VOIP ATA had no mounting holes on the bottom but was lightweight enough that we were able to mount it by simply running wire across the device and tightening it across mounting screws. Perhaps a better method is to use 3M double-sided tape, although it does leave a residue if you have to remove the tape. We found our method sufficient enough that the ATA hasn’t really moved on the very rare occasion we’ve had to unplug it. Over the past three years, the devices on our network have changed and grown. We’ve added tablets, cell phones, another three desktop PCs, subtracted a laptop and the XBMC netbook, and most recently a MyGica ATV582 streaming Android device.

Our living room entertainment system came somewhat full circle starting out as a desktop machine running MythTV, evolving into a netbook running XBMC with several external hard drives attached, and changing back to a KODI/XBMC Core 2 Quad-based desktop with 3 large drives for storage. Although it’s a bit of an eyesore, the living room PC acts as a media server for all the devices in our place. The two other desktop PCs added to the network are full workstations. One of the two replaced a laptop while the other was simply added because we needed something more modern than the other computers we had. Most of the time, the workhorse workstation is used for ripping Blu-ray discs. We’ve bought a lot of Blu-ray movies we wouldn’t have purchased if we didn’t have this machine, even though we have a couple of stand-alone Blu-ray players. Although we love the quality of Blu-ray, that alone wasn’t enough to convince us to buy Blu-ray discs. In fact we had only 3 Blu-ray discs eight months after getting our first stand-alone Blu-ray player. It was the convenience of having Blu-ray movies on our KODI server that led us to buy more Blu-ray discs.

The file sizes for Blu-ray movies are huge; some we have stored are as large as 45GB. Transferring those files from our workhorse workstation to the KODI box required gigabit. Although devices like the MyGica ATV582 feature wireless, we ran wire to every room and connected most devices (minus a notebook, tablets and phones). Our current router doesn’t have any gigabit ports so we added a five-port gigabit switch to the wall mounted network center. We’ve also added another gigabit switch in one of the bedrooms so we didn’t have to run two cables for the ATV582 and a desktop PC. Unlike the living room, we mounted the switch closer to the floor so it could be hidden behind smaller furniture. Most of the devices on our home network run Linux. All our cell phones are Android. The single notebook left runs Ubuntu Gnome but doesn’t get as much use as the workhorse workstation which runs Xubuntu. One of the tablets is Android based, and one iOS. The other two workstations run Windows. Although our router is old, it’s been running smoothly right up until recently, running DD-WRT custom firmware. We’ve recently replaced our old ADSL modem, not because the old one malfunctioned, but because we’d purchased a newer version of the same modem awhile back for troubleshooting purposes and finally got around to replacing it. Next change for us is switching out the old router for a new wireless router, but this will be a bit of a challenge. It would be nice to find a wireless router with five gigabit ports and strong enough wireless capability to sort through the (yes) 60+ visible wireless networks within range, but we’ll settle for the second feature and keep our five-port gigabit switch for now. Suggestions?