Mini PC as a Firewall -
This week I have been playing with a mini PC, based on a VIA C3 533MHz processor. It has 256MB of SDRAM, a 40GB notebook HDD, and three NICs. I put Linux on it as a favour for a mate, configured as a firewall and web server.
I started out with Debian Sarge, as that's what I had on hand (and prefer), and I have to say, the install was a breeze, the biggest hassle being to get a cdrom drive plugged into a suitable power supply. This CPU uses a standard i586 instruction set, standard IDE controller and Realtek NICs. And it ran pretty fast too!
The real beauty of these is the fact that they're small, fanless, and as a result, nearly silent. Perfect for a small home file/email/print server or firewall/proxy.
Next up was to install Fedora Core 4 on it, as that's what was requested. The install was just as easy as Debian, but for some reason (probably buggy drivers in the kernel) the system was unstable, getting hard disk errors and random freezes until I upgraded the kernel and all packages to the latest versions. Since then it has run fine.
Here's a pic of the back of the unit showing the ports:
Here's a pic from the top, showing the internals:
Next, I want to try FreeBSD 6 on it...
-Jonesy
This week I have been playing with a mini PC, based on a VIA C3 533MHz processor. It has 256MB of SDRAM, a 40GB notebook HDD, and three NICs. I put Linux on it as a favour for a mate, configured as a firewall and web server.
I started out with Debian Sarge, as that's what I had on hand (and prefer), and I have to say, the install was a breeze, the biggest hassle being to get a cdrom drive plugged into a suitable power supply. This CPU uses a standard i586 instruction set, standard IDE controller and Realtek NICs. And it ran pretty fast too!
The real beauty of these is the fact that they're small, fanless, and as a result, nearly silent. Perfect for a small home file/email/print server or firewall/proxy.
Next up was to install Fedora Core 4 on it, as that's what was requested. The install was just as easy as Debian, but for some reason (probably buggy drivers in the kernel) the system was unstable, getting hard disk errors and random freezes until I upgraded the kernel and all packages to the latest versions. Since then it has run fine.
Here's a pic of the back of the unit showing the ports:
Here's a pic from the top, showing the internals:
Next, I want to try FreeBSD 6 on it...
-Jonesy