Andrew,
You can get by with a Pentium and barely enough RAM to get your favorite
Linux distro installed. Really, being a firewall isn't very taxing on the CPU,
and unless you have a huge rule set and are keeping state on hundereds of
thousands of connections, the RAM is not that big of a deal either.
I do suggest you use a decent network card and it should be PCI, if
possible.
The PCI bus can handle the speed bursts that come with broadband network use.
Intel = good, Realtek = not too good.
More than anything, you are looking at interrupts, not system or
user time on
the CPU.
Mike
Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
Hello
I am going to follow the advice of the group and build my home
network using a Linux firewall box. I need to get an idea as to what
would be the minimum CPU speed needed, memory needed and disk space
needed for such a box. I have a few older Compaq PC's that might fit
the bill. I am not interested in building a development station. This
box would be connected to the cable modem and the computers in the
house would be connected to the linux box by either a hub, switch or
router (to be determined).
Thanks,
Andrew
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