I prefer not to give ecumenical advice here. Besides, that is a journey whose roads can only be driven by you.

Now Practical advice, that goes like this:

You need to invest yourself into your workbench in order to learn to make tools:


a.) To work comfortably you'll need to add at least a PII server into it. (Shouldn't need more than a used PIII -300Mhz for quite awhile).


b.) If you haven't put systems together before pay the extra $100 - $300 to have a local shop put together a system that's appropriate for you. Used components are often a good deal if backed up by a local shop that's been around awhile. I would put money in getting a NEW hdd on your server. (Whatever gets you the most Mbites/$ at said local shop.)


c.) Network your three systems (Don't buy linksys even if they are cheaper.) 10mb network cards are fine but go for a 10/100 hub you'll be glad you did later.


d.) Don't worry about the hard drive space on your client 486's forcing yourself to use SAMBA and NFS to access space on the server is part of the proffessional growth you get out this project


e.) Set your server up to be an internet server for your network.


i.) For a litt;e extra valuable education register and host a site from it). If you have cable-modems accessibility go that road with a DNS redirector (Don't mess with DNS it doesn't pay off in education for the security hole any extra port represents).


ii. Don't bother messing with hosting via an analog hook-up. Digital is the only decent solution


f.) Set your 486laptop as a win9b client. Cuz the rest of the world will force you to have a DOS interface until you learn more, and linux may have some problems with such an old laptop.


g.) I don't know what your *NIX favorites are but your 486 workstation could be any linux/free-BSD flavor you chose. It'll probably be 4 or 9 OS's before your sure what it should be. This is your sandbox for learning. otherwise known as your development server. You create on here what you migrate to your internet server (production server).


h.) If your really serious about doing things right put Free-BSD on your server. Or if your more comfortable with linux I reccommend Mandrakes HIGH SECURITY install or bastion. Patch it,firewall it and ONLY mess with it when your OS distrubuter puts out security releases.


i.) Get yourself a monitor switch/cable box to share one monitor with all 3 of your systems.

Accomplish these things and you will not only have gained the minimal tools required to exploit the on-line world with the most minimal investment, but you will have also improve your market value.

At least that's how it's worked out for me.