Okay, I'm getting ready to build my network at home but have some
questions that I haven't been able to really come up with good answers
to.  Some help and thoughts on this would really be appreciated.

General layout:  I'll have 4 machines on my network at home, along with
a Jet Direct box (#170X) to a BJC-4100 printer.  Two machines will be
dual boot Windows98SE/SuSE 7.0, server will be pure Linux (thinking
Debian) as it's a very low end Pentium with small hard drive space,
laptop is Linux only currently running Mandrake 7.1.  I'm not available
for DSL or cable modem, so internet connection is through dial-up modem.

My primary concern is on the server.  My plans for it are the following:
DNS/DHCP, samba, printing control, autodialing modem for requests to WWW
or mail from ISP, firewall (very basic), and internal file server.  Is
this too much to ask of this one server and will being the DNS/DHCP
server that's making the connection to the ISP cause problems?

The other big question is on modem capabilites.  Since I'm not able to
get DSL or cable modem, Ricochet is also out of the question, can two
modems be multi-linked to get faster download speeds?  I know it's
capable in W98se, as long as they are two different modems.  I have an
external USR 56k modem (max connection speeds of 45,333 really) and an
internal ISA USR 56k modem (connections up to 51xxx).  Can I set up my
server to initiate and dial both modems to connect to my ISP
automatically when a request is sent?  I've thought about satellite from
Starband, but it's $700 to start with hardware, $80 a month.  Static
IP's are out of the question, as is webhosting with them, also it's a 6
second delay so gaming is out.  Don't know if Linux supports it either.
I've looked into ISDN, but am having a hard time justifying the need to
buy another modem for ISDN, and the $105 to $120+ a month for 128k
connections.  If I can use both modems simultaneously I'd rather go with
that than the other high cost solutions.


Thanks,

Shawn