At Mon, 22 Nov 2010 07:51:46 +0100 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote: > > Hi, > > Last week I finished installing a small network in a private school : > one server (an old IBM X225), seventeen desktops (Fujitsu Siemens PIV > 2.4 GHZ, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB HD), all running CentOS 5.5. > > One extra machine is acting as a router, in that it is installed between > the DSL modem and the network, with two Ethernet cards, and it's taking > care of DHCP, DNS, NTP and also acts like a proxy (with Squid). It seems > quite big and noisy and electricity-consuming to me, so I wonder if > there is any small device that could possibly do the job as good, but > which would me more adapted : small, solid and cheap (if possible). I > imagine some tiny box just with a CPU and a small harddisk, a little RAM > and two network interfaces (one out, one in), where I could install a > very stripped-down CentOS, and then just forget about it. > > So far, I've googled a bit, and I've found two things: 1) Pyramid > Soekris boards, where I can put something like Pyramid Linux on it. And > 2) The Linksys WRT54GL, for which there are Linux firmwares like OpenWRT > and DD-WRT. > > Is there anything you could especially recommend for this job? (I'm not > afraid of getting my hands dirty, BTW :oD) One *simple* option would be to get a "small" IDE (I assume the existing router machine is IDE based) SSD (or a 32G Compact Flash card + IDE adaptor -- see eBay) and replace the IDE hard drive with this and pull out the case fan (or just unplug its power connector). Remove its keyboard / mouse / monitor. Much of the noise and power use is the disk drive and fan (for the disk drive). > > Cheers, > > Niki > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > > -- Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 / heller at deepsoft.com Deepwoods Software -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ () ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail /\ www.asciiribbon.org -- against proprietary attachments