I would definitely have to say smoothwall. It is the best package I've ever
seen and used. It also features everything that you need and is the most
closed up thing I've ever seen. Can't hack a bit on it really. It's just
all around great and easy to set up plus updates and the list goes on.
Just try and I think you'll be happy. You will need an HD but not a big one
unless you do a ton of surfing with the cache on, the ISO's only about
20-40Mb (I don't recall because it's been so long since I've had to do
anything on it). My cache is almost 2 gig of corporate images and what not.
Good Luck,
Bryce C.
Network Administrator / Scripting Consultant
CoBryce Communications
Bryce@BryceCo.Net
http://www.BryceCo.Net
P.S. I'm running mine on a K6 200 w/32Mb on a 13Gb hard and P5 Motherboard.
Yes, I know how old that is.
-----Original Message-----
From:
plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
[
mailto:plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us]On Behalf Of Kevin
Brown
Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2001 11:48 PM
To:
plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
Subject: Re: Home gateway choices
You could also add FreeSco to your list of choices. From others on this
list it
looks like a very useful OS for a Firewall/Gateway on a 486. Running it
headless is a good idea so that if hacked they can't do much to it (like
booted
from a CD image).
http://www.freesco.org/
> I recently obtained a 486 (Old Acer tower), with lots of nifty stuff: and
> old QIC-80 tape backup drive, 16 MB of RAM, coprocessor, and a CD-ROM.
Only
> thing it didn't have is a hard drive, which I can add if necessary. The
> computer even has two 3Com Etherlink III cards. One with an and rj-45
> socket, the other with a serial style port for an external box and a coax
> socket. There's also an internal ISA modem, but I haven't managed to find
> any information on it yet, but I suspect it's probably not going to be
fast
> enough that I'd want to use it for any great length of time.
>
> As it's a shame to let a still working machine go unused, and since it's
> much quieter than my old Pentium 100 box I'm hoping to use it as a gateway
> for my home network. Currently I'm looking at Smoothwall, E-Smith and
> Coyote Linux. While I have occasional access to a computer with a DSL
> connection I'm connected here at home over a plain old 56k modem
(external,
> so I can move it over to the 486); so, since I beleive I've heard people
> here say they've used all three of those I thought I'd ask for comments
> before taking the time to download one or more of them.
>
> First, a floppy only system would be nice, but isn't a requirement. I've
> got a spare 800 MB drive sitting unused as an emergency spare. And it
> should run on a 486, but I don't expect that to be a problem :-)
>
> My biggest desire is for a gateway that will connect to the internet only
> on request. That is by conscious decision, not simply because some dail on
> demand daemon noticed that someone on the network started up their email
> software and that it automatically tried to download the newest messages.
> We only have one phone line, so not unintentionally making it busy is
> important. I seem to recall from my looking at the three mentioned
> distributions that at least one could be set so you would connect and
> disconnect by going to a local web page and simply clicking on a button.
> Having the connection be dropped after a time out period would still be
nice.
>
> Anything past that is a bonus.
>
> I suppose my biggest request is for comments on Smoothwall, E-Smith or
> Coyote linux from anyone who has used them. They all look good, at least
> from the information on their websites, but nothing beats hearing from
> someone with experience.
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