> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-discuss-admin@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> [mailto:plug-discuss-admin@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us]On Behalf Of Kurt
> Granroth
> Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2001 11:36 AM
> To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> Subject: Re: Alternatives to Frys?
>
>
> Craig White wrote:
> > The LinkSys internet routers are marginal quality.
> >
> > You should be ashamed of buying one of these since you are
> 'linux' informed.
> > There is nothing that this LinkSys router can do that you can't easily
> > accomplish running Linux with  2 NIC's.
>
> I disagree.  I was using a Linux box with 2 NICs as my router and
> wasn't very pleased.  It was too big, too hot, and too loud to be used
> in my living room (where my BB cable comes in).  I got a Linuxsys
> router and have been pleased as punch ever since.
>
> It took me all of 5 minutes to setup and has been rock-solid ever
> since.  Configuration is next to trivial and the "advanced" features
> (while not as complete as what ipchains or netfilter can do) did
> everything that I needed doing! It is also tiny, cool, and silent so I
> can easily hide it. :-)
>
> I did quite some research on 'net routers before buying it and the
> Linksys was very well recommended.  There *were* some complaints about
> a particular version of the firmware, but mine had the updated one.
>
> I would recommend this product to anyone!
-----
I do recommend this product to people for home use but that wasn't the
point.

This is a linux exchange - what better advocacy can we make than to suggest
that by setting up your own router, you will gain invaluable knowledge about
routing and linux by rolling your own instead of doing the easy
thing...buying a NON-open source box.

As for your box...
- noisy? buy better parts.
- big? I would love to find a cheap small box/motherboard combo with 2
integrated NIC's.
- slow? don't do the mandrake 1400 package install.
  Forget X and all the other unnecessary trash. It is possible to make a
  system bootable with just a floppy disk.

Moreover, you can learn how to configure sendmail, apache and other
daemons - the experience thing...it's valuable.

As for the LinkSys, there have been some rather buggy releases which I guess
that they have provided firmware updates to fix most of these issues but
they are apparently still haunted by DHCP bugs.