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Old 20th June 2011
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Dr-D Dr-D is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Posts: 43
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I'm basically doing this as a learning experience. I could stick a new $30.00 D-Link router on my network and be done with it but where's the fun or learning experience in that? I want a deeper understanding of the security features Linux and BSD offer.

For my customers who need simple file and print servers I've always just built them Redhat boxes and used Samba because they didn't want to pay the MS extortion fees.

I've tried many other Linux flavours but always revert back to Redhat for any production use. I've been aware of BSD for quite sometime but have finally just decided to start playing around with it, and I very much like it so far. I setup a Samba server with FreeBSD and that went easily enough so then I decided to embark on my OpenBSD router project. It's a bit of a steep learning curve but sites like this make it easy to want to stick with it. I love PC-BSD as a Windows desktop replacement.

After running my home computer business for 15 years now I've collected tons of old computer parts as you can imagine, which is what I've used to build both my Duron 950Mhz tower and AMD 5200+ tower. I just carted off a truck load of old 386, 486 and P1 stuff to the dump last week since it had been laying around and not touched for years. Have to make room for more future junk. ;-)

My BSD router has worked beautifully today and I've hammered it with constant large downloads and streaming video all day and haven't seen one hiccup. My internet connection is noticeably faster too and doing the speed test at my ISP's speed test link confirms it. I usually get between 14-16Mbps with my 3Com router and with my BSD router I'm getting over 19Mbps every time with 19.62Mbps being my best. Now I'm going to install and run it on my Duron 950MHz box and compare.
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