In the mean time, everyone else has covered the reasoning in more detail. You want to have a proper default config in place, so if you reset to factory defaults, your interface assignments go back to where they were originally, serial console setup appropriately where relevant, etc. There also may be hardware-specific tweaks or tuning in such images. It's done to make your experience with the hardware as hassle-free as possible.
For what it's worth, this thread has made up my mind; I was on the fence between buying a rackmount Netgate FW-7541 or white-boxing as a replacement for my Cisco 2901 (which I no longer entirely trust as a result of Snowden etc). I knew Netgate had some involvement with ESF but I didn't realise the extent of the crossover.
So: thanks for the openness, guys! As an aside, it would be interesting to know specifically how the Netgate-customised builds differ from stock pfSense, but purely for educational reasons -- and I understand that this could be considered as Netgate's IP.
---tim _______________________________________________ List mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list
