🚀 go-pugleaf

>> Firstly, I'd go with either Redhat or Debian simply because IMHO they are
>> easier to maintain and easier to set up.
>
>I would agree with looking for Redhat over Slackware. For me, Redhat was
>the more comprehensive, and better designed package by far. Debian, OTOH,
>I've never tried.

   I'm running Debian on 5 Linux servers at the moment.  I highly recommend it.  The
best Linux-related thing I've ever done was to replace Slackware with Debian.

>> Hmmm.  So if I'm
>> right on this point then presumably you could set up your 486 (optimized
>> as a router - an option in the newer kernels) and voila - a fairly decent
>> router box.  Of course if you wanted to use it for webhosting and mail
>> too you might lose a bit of speed and might consider at least a Pentium
>> 133 (upgrade?).
>
>Actually, if there's only one other host on the local network, I would be
>pretty certain that the 28.8k modem would give out _long_ before a
>mid-to-high end 486 started feeling the load, as long as said 486 wasn't
>running X. The 486 is actually a pretty neat chip, people just disparage
>it because it won't run the latest MS bloatware.

  Absolutely.  I've got an Amd486-133 running 3 * 33K6 and 1 * 28K8 PPP links on
cua[0-3], up to 4 ppp connections over telnet from a terminal server, a squid cache
that often has more than 12 systems hitting it at once, shell access, primary DNS
for a number of zones, and a mail/POP server for a few hundred accounts.  The
486 CPU has plenty of grunt to spare, but I would like to upgrade from 32megs of
RAM sometime soon...

>ObAside: Microsoft recently announced that Windows 97 would signal the
>'death' of the 486 chip. Which is good, because hopefully second-hand
>prices will crash, and I'll be able to afford a cheap gateway server for
>my home setup. :)

   I've been buying 486CPU and motherboard combinations for <$50AU recently.  Can
prices drop much more?


Russell Coker