* "Martin v. L?wis" ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > Lars Wirzenius wrote: > >So using a 386 as a router and firewall, which it is perfectly capable > >of hardwarewise > > Is that really the case?
Yes.
> a) Is anybody actually doing this, today?
Yes.
> b) Do you then have 10MB or 100MB ethernet in that computer?
> Can you even put a 100MB ethernet card into the computer?
> Does it have PCI?
If you've only got a 1.5Mb/s max connection to the internet a 386 can
handle it just fine. You can put 100Mb/s ethernet cards in a 386 using
the ISA bus and a 3c515 card. It can't get 100Mb/s speeds of course but
as I recall it can get above 10Mb/s. Again, not that it matters if the
uplink speed is slow.
> I really don't recall the answers to these questions, since it
> is such a long time that I have last seen a real 386 machine.
I've got a 386 here that I'm not currently using but is still in
perfectly working order. A friend of mine has a 386 being used as a
firewall under 2.4 for his ADSL connection. I've got a 486 which is
currently being used as a mail relay server (which obviously needs
security updates) and an original pentium box as my gateway. My dad has
a 486 for his firewall on his ADSL connection which I set up for him.
386's seemed to be faster than m68k machines from what I saw when I last
had my m68k box up and running.
> If there is enough userbase for an i386 distribution,
> I wouldn't mind if an i386 port was maintained separately.
> However, I really think it would be a good thing if Linux
> could, in general, assume 486+ (or perhaps even Pentium+).
Having multiple ports based on intelligent break-points in the x86
architecture could make sense. I say intelligent break-points because
it might make more sense to have a '386' version and a '586' version and
that's it rather than have one for every arch type gcc has. I'm sure
there's a tradeoff between disk space and buildd time and other factors
and if a given arch really improved things that much.
Stephen
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