[H-GEN] CRUX (A programmers linux distro)

[David Jericho]

Robert Brockway wrote:

>A dedicated router could be out of the reach of many home users because of
>cost, or they may just wish to avoid buying something else when a spare PC
>will do.
>

It is? It's only scale of solution.

To use http://www.umart.com.au/ as a source for prices,

* D-Link DI 704P Gateway Router - $85.00
Provides:- Firewall
           Printer sharing
           4 Fast Ethernet ports
           DHCP    

* Netcomm NB1300 ADSL Modem + Router - $133.00
Provides:- Firewall
           USB and Ethernet connection
           DHCP
          
* Netgear DG632 ADSL Modem + Router - $105.00
Provides:- Firewall
           ADSL2+ capable
           USB and Ethernet connection
           DHCP

For another hundred dollars or so, you can get one that will allow you 
to plug a USB or Firewire hard drive in and share it as a file server 
would.

As for wastage of an old machine, pah I say! A dedicated router is far 
lower power consumption, easier for an uneducated person to setup and 
maintain, and the old machine can be dragged down to Cash Convertors or 
a favourite charity. After all, a 500 MHz machine is still usable.

But either way, these units are dedicated routers even if they're based 
on your favourite OSS Unix variant. They're not Unix machines in the 
traditional sense, even if someone were to get the password to the 
administration side they're usually difficult to abuse on if you're not 
local.

Infact, I was arguing with Andrae last week that a Cisco Catalyst 
6513[1] could be viewed as a glorified high power appliance. Combined 
with the right tools and the right process, a user unfamiliar with the 
core of the system could use 9/10ths of the functionality present.

[1] http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps708/index.html

-- 
David Jericho
Senior Systems Administrator, Tucana Technologies