My home lan has a number of RiscPCs on it, together with one old Win98
box, and a few other odds and ends.  I have both ISDN and ADSL routers
on the LAN, which is mainly Cat5 with a 16 port 10/100 switch.

I would like to configure a server on the network - mainly to act as
a file server, but also handling mail and news.  Would it be
reasonable to use a RPC/StrongARM for this function, running
ARMLinux or NetBSD.  I realise that the RPC bus is not particularly
fast and I should really be thinking in terms of either one of the
neat 1U rack-mount units, a PC box with Linux/NetBSD or one of the
(Strong)ARM based embedded/prototype boards.  However, I do fancy
trying to do it with a RPC.

Idealy, I would like to use a disc interface which is quicker than the
built-in IDE hardware, and a 100bT network interface.

Is there/is anyone working on drivers for the APDL Blitz IDE card, or
would I have to make do with the slower Arcin card (for which I
believe there is a driver), or is there another faster option?  I
believe that the claims for the Arcin card are that it will achieve
more than 4MB/s under RISC OS and the Blitz ~7.5MB/s.  Would these
figures be matched by the Linux/NetBSD driver.

Does anyone intend to make a driver for the forthcoming Castle 100bT
network cards (which use the SMSC LAN91C111 controller)?

I would be grateful for any advice.

-- 
Peter Bell - peter@bellfamily.org.uk