[Techtalk] tiny homebuilt appliance?

Elizabeth Barham lizzy at soggytrousers.net
Thu Oct 23 22:32:53 EST 2003


Carla writes:

> I'm looking for an alternative to using old PCs for firewall/gateway
> and other specialized servers. They're big and clunky. I've heard
> here and there of little computers-on-boards- anyone know what I'm
> talking about? For an Internet gateway, for example, all I need is
> CPU, memory, and storage. Not a whole huge box with expansion slots
> and fans and masses of circuitry I'll never use. Something with a
> serial connection and Ethernet.
> 
> For a commercial box, I really like Snapgear. But I'd like to build
> my own.  I'm not sure what to look for, I've been googling and
> getting confused.

   I've been thinking about doing something similar. I was using an
old 486 as a firewall which I replaced with a D-Link wireless router
which has added wireless to the house but its not nearly as good of a
firewall as the 486 although of course its smaller, quieter and uses
less electricity.

   So I'm just passing on this little link although you probably know
about it:

      http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2016997232.html

at the bottom there is a link about building your own single board
computer (SBC).

   I've been considering dowing something like this for a long time,
too. It seems to me that a little device that can use a flash-disk
card as its main medium would work wonderfully as the 486 I did use
had only a 120 MB hard disk drive.

hth, Elizabeth


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