Should I join a pool or go solo?

[LOLMoney]

Disclaimer: I'm a noob to mining, go easy on me. 

I have multiple computers and plan on having them all start mining.

Here are my questions:
1. Should I setup my own Bitcoin pool for my own machines to connect to and mine myself or should I join a pool?
1a. If so, which pool should I join? [best payout, most conversions, etc..]

2. I'm currently looking at GUIMiner, It seems to run and function on my Windows based machines, but I have multiple other machines running Linux that I would like to put in as well, what is suggested for each platform for the maximum Mhash/s?

I'm sorry, I've searched a bit, but can never find a clear answer. Any guidance is really appreciated!

[LegitBit]

There is no clear answer, it's up to you.


Pools: Steady small payouts

Solo: Possible large payouts, but only feasible at high hash-rates.


Most kiddies go to the pool.

[Killarshark33]

Well if you are gpu mining we need to know what cards you have so we can caculate the has rate, if you are CPU mining quit now it will take you a good 50 years to mine anything at the current difficulty.

[tgeo]

Well if you are gpu mining we need to know what cards you have so we can caculate the has rate, if you are CPU mining quit now it will take you a good 50 years to mine anything at the current difficulty.

Like he said, its all gonna depend on your Mhash/s... If its high enough, you can go solo and possibly make money (almost like gambling). If you go with a pool, you'll never "hit it big" but you will get smaller, regular payouts

[Killarshark33]

Well if you are gpu mining we need to know what cards you have so we can caculate the has rate, if you are CPU mining quit now it will take you a good 50 years to mine anything at the current difficulty.

Like he said, its all gonna depend on your Mhash/s... If its high enough, you can go solo and possibly make money (almost like gambling). If you go with a pool, you'll never "hit it big" but you will get smaller, regular payouts

And by smaller payouts he means small.  Let me give you an example.  One coin can go out to 8 decimal places do you could get one millionth of a coin doing pooled mining, it is your choice but if you are using your GPU pooled mining could get you 1-2 coins per day max.

[LOLMoney]

Thanks for the great replies [and not flaming me]. Looks like I'll be joining a pool.