I am setting up a home network consisting of 3 computers. As I understand it, I need a router, a NIC in every computer, and mess of cat5.

Questions:
Any router better than the rest? Any worth spending more money on, or should I just get the cheapest one with a firewall?

Most of my files will be kept on a desktop running Mandrake. Any special concerns regarding OS'es?

This is what you want. Netgear RP614 cable/dsl router/switch. 4 ports. Cnets editors choice 2002. I use this thing out our office. Works like a champ
http://www.netgear.com/products/prod_de ... 31&view=hm
You'll need 4 cat5 cables. It has a built in firewall.

You can get it at best buy.

yea, I'm with 11b. You don't need anything especially cool for your setup. Even if you plan on adding more computers/network-devices, you can always buy a switch later.

If you wanna be COOL, though, you need a Cisco router like me.

that's my goal in life...

Thanks for the advice boys.

1 more thing. NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER buy a Linksys.

lol, or a mentor. it's what I have. though it does support up to 255 computers.

bleh. Any router supports 253 computers.

BTW, if they actually said 255, they're probably lying. You can't have 255 hosts in a single class C network. Only 254 plus the network address, the broadcast address, and the router itself. They may be using a class B or class A, but I find it unlikely.

My Cisco router can theoretically support 2^24 computers, but it would run out of memory for NAT translations way before that. In fact, if I remember correctly the NAT table is limited to like 65k address translations.

bleh, anyway...Cisco is the coolest.