Network/LAN setup/install for a home

[tys4]

In a month, I'm moving with a few buddies into a house. Since we kinda have free reign, we want to professionaly install a network. That is, more professional then the way we currently have it set up (cables running across the carpet, held down with duct tape). Basically, it's a 5 room house with a small garage, so i'd like 10-12 max ports (one for each room, and 7 for garage). I keep hearing that giganet is the way to go. that true? doesnt that mean our current 10/100 cards wont work? It's going to be fed by, sign, cable for the first few months.

I guess what im asking is:

1) 100m ethernet cool, or can we use giga with existing cards? do we have to upgrade cards and/or wires?

2) what kind of router/hub should be used for this? preferably with some sort of mild protection (NAT firewall or sumthin)

3) any sites that sell home networking stuff?

4) is wireless just too slow/expensive of an option for this?

thoughts?

[Phero.1]

Giga ethernet is expensive and a bit Overkill for your situation. 100mbit should be more than enough for file swapping / gaming and so on.
Wireless is ok and not that expensive but it's not an option if you plan to be gaming alot. The ping latency on those things is far from good.

You probably need a shared internet solution too and hence some sort of hardware gateway/router. Throw in some switches and a few hubs and you should be ready.

I recommend D-link and 3com.

[tys4]

Way cool, thanks for the advice.

So I guess Gigabit is overkill/pricey, wireless is affordable but not usefull in my situation (no laptops or pdas), and a regular 100m ethernet is the way to go.

My final question: since I'm going that way, the hardware I currently have (a 10m generic 4port hub and a 10/100 Linksys 4port router) is useless, yeah? Scrap that for a SMC?

And a switch it different then a router because how? I know some router's include NAT firewalls. I guess i would prefer to protect the network as best as possible (all XP machines and a ethernet HP printer) while enabling filesharing and of course, LAN gaming. If i use switch hardware, will I be reliant on the 'protection' from software firewall? I know a NAT (or equiv.) isn't exactly a true hardware firewall, but i currently, heh, feel protected by Linksys's NAT for some reason.