On Wed, 2002-09-25 at 21:30, Jim Streit wrote: > I'm currently thinking about using a small Linux distro, about a 1 > gigahertz PC, and gigabit NIC's. I would like to use a small distro > that is current (not LRP) and easy to manage. If it can gather stats > and stuff that would be cool too. I would also like to be able to > expand the router to 4 NIC's in the future. If you want to be able to use as much bandwidth as possible, you'll have to look for boards that have PCI buses that are better than the standard 32-bit, 33 MHz stuff most of us have. Gigabit NICs can choke that up pretty quick. You'll probably have to look at some pretty high-end motherboards to find what best suits your needs. http://www.scyld.com/network/ lists some of the available drivers and cards. I'd personally avoid Intel NICs if possible, as there seem to be some funny issues with how the drivers are written. The driver is GPL, but certain parts of it are apparently covered under patents, and Intel has been unwilling to say which parts those are. Also, I understand that Intel hasn't released specs for the card, so they are really the only ones who can properly debug problems with the driver. That might have changed since I last looked, though, and I'm not sure if other cards have similar situations or what.. If you intend to run gigabit over copper, there's an interesting study at http://www.cs.uni.edu/~gray/gig-over-copper/gig-over-copper.html I think their testing methodology might not suit routers, though, as they just seem to be testing speed between two computers. Anyway, good luck, looks like fun. -- _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ ___ _ _ __ Error: MentalPlex(tm) has / \/ \(_)| ' // ._\ / - \(_)/ ./| ' /(__ determined that this is not \_||_/|_||_|_\\___/ \_-_/|_|\__\|_|_\ __) your final answer. [ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088 at tc.umn.edu ] -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part Url : http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20021122/48d45f4b/attachment.pgp