2/13 I'm looking around for a very small PC I can use as a portable
firewall, fileserver, whatnot, to run FreeBSD on. I have looked
at <DEAD>www.advantech.com<DEAD> and want something of that size, but
advantechs are a bit pricey. All I need is a serial port, two
network cards, space for an IDE laptop drive, approx. a Pentium200,
and preferably no CPU or power supply fans (noise.) Can someone give
me a tip how I can build or buy something like this? -John
\_ How about a Toshiba Libretto?
\_ Dual PCMCIA nics are quite expensive. Better to get one of
those one board pc's with a plastic case from Radio Shack.
\_ custom order it from bsdi.
\_ The 1U box is quite loud and expensive ($1300).
\_ buy a bookpc
\_ This thing is pretty damn nice.
Other alternatives if NetBSD/OpenBSD is okay for you:
1. A old Sun SparcStation IPX - small, quiet, dual nics are
around $35 each. You can't really add an IDE drive but a
1 or 2 gig Seagate Hawk or a Quantum Fireball is all you
really need for a firewall/dns/dhcp/print server.
If you need more processing power and disk isn't important,
you might consider a SparcStation 10. There isn't enough
room to mount an IDE disk in a SS10, though.
2. A old Sun SparcStation 2 - reasonably quiet, low power
draw, one extra nic is ~ $35. You can get a IDE to SCSI
converter and use and IDE disk.
3. A old Sun SparcStation 4/5/20 - reasonably quiet, low
power draw, one extra nic can be had for $35. You can
get a IDE to SCSI converter (I have one in my SS20) and
use any IDE disk (I'm running a 10 GB seagate). With an
IDE disk, these systems are pretty quiet.
4. A Cobalt Qube2 - small, quite, dual nics built in, any
IDE drive will work. Installing NetBSD is a little hard,
but once you have it running, it works great.
All of these (except perhaps a Qube2) can be had for under
$150, excluding the IDE to SCSI converter ($76).
\_ why the fuck would you use a Sun box for this application?
particularly when Fuzzy specified Intel hardware. -tom
\_ Sun boxes are much quieter than Intel hardware and
it stupid.
the ones I mentioned are much cheaper as well. Plus
you don't have to put up with all that PC stupidity.
\_ Just because you don't understand it doesn't make
it stupid. Yeah, futzing with jumpers for
IRQs and memory base addresses is *really*
exciting.
\_ Sun boxes are absolutely not any quieter than
Intel hardware. What a ridiculous statement.
And the ones you mentioned aren't any cheaper
than Intel hardware of equivalent age. -tom
\_ How much sun equipment do you own? I have
every single one of the boxes that I
mentioned and they much quieter than my
pentium box and draw considerably less
power. A P-200 class machines in the
form factor that he wants will cost about
$200 to $300. That is not counting dual
nics and other peripherals. An IPX or SS2
is about $45 + a $35 nic and you have a
decent firewall that can handle wirespeed
10BaseT filtering for $80. A CPU upgrade
puts you at $160 tops. A SS10 will maybe
cost $40 more.
\_ I run something like 300 Sun boxes.
The fact that *your* pentium box is loud
is completely irrelevant; the noise in
a computer is either the fan or the disk
and there's no reason either should be
louder on a Pentium than a Sparc. A P-200
class machine is about 4 years newer than
an IPX or Sparc 2, and it would only cost
$300 if you were buying it from marco. -tom
\_ Did you check his link? The form factor
he wants is roughly the same as a IPX.
Find him a PC in that form factor for
under $200.
The reason that PC's are louder is that
they run hotter (CPU fans) and require
much larger power supplies (200 or 250
W compared to a 140 W in the SS10 and
smaller in the IPX) which require much
larger fans. These fans are often of
much lower quality and often rattle
lose bearings.
It is irrelavant that a 200 MHz PC is
4 years newer than a IPX. He wants a
light usage firewarell. A IPX can filter
10BaseT traffic at wirespeed. The
PCI/ISA bus controller on a PC of that
vintage can't handle that the SBus
controller can.
\_ An E450 is deafening
\_ I'm not talking about a E450. |
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