[SC.LUG] welcome

[David Bean]

On Thu, 2004-04-15 at 10:22, Greg Bolshaw wrote:
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> On Thursday 15 Apr 2004 09:52, Tim Littlemore wrote:
> > I also have a Mandrake box
> > that I use as a Firewall/Router at home - it was a long drawn-out
> > affair getting my USB Alcatel SpeedTouch modem working, but I got
> > there in the end!
> 
> Smoothwall! http://www.smoothwall.org/ - it's a 40ish-meg download, and 
> turns any old PC with network card and USB "frog" into a top-class 
> router/firewall/webcache etc.
> 
> Well worth a look.
> 

I just downloaded it, but by the time I had the image my P90 was running
Debian woody as a router/firewall. I've previously found that web and
DNS caching are not good for me, performance was worse than without. The
hardware was a K6-2 500 with 40 Gb 7200rpm disk, 256Mb. DNS was really a
lot slower doing lookups than direct to NTL, and web caching on a
separate machine was no better than having a large browser cache.

Since with Smoothwall I would have to burn a CD for each update, I
decided to use the hard disk in the P90 as it's a bit better
environmentally, than throwing CD's away. If I set / to read only and
switch off swap, the hard drive can be switched off after boot, for more
power saving. 

Dave Bean