Ok, as I've said before, networking isn't my strong point, so:
I've been looking into the kit needed to network 8 computers to a PC which has cable comming into it. Assume that I have the software needed to turn the PC into a router (because I do). Cable will come into one NIC on the PC, and the connection to all the other PCs will be via a second NIC.
I've only looked at hubs so far. With all the hubs I've seen, the "uplink" socket (ie. the one that would be connected to the router) just involves turning (on an 8 port hub) the 8th port into an uplink port, so what i'm in fact left with is a 7 port hub.
Now I started looking at switches.
It seems that some switches have a dedicated uplink port built in, for example
this one.
Is that standard, or is it some kind of cheap 'graft on' job that's going to perform like crap?
It also waffles on about plug 'n play for that switch - the problem being that the PC acting as a router is going to be running a linux distro. I had assumed these things just worked out of the box - am I wrong?
Please excuse my lack of expertise here...