Jerry,

>Sounds like a great use to dedicate an old 486DX100 to!! I didn't see any lower limits to RAM but it seems like even a 4MB box would work ok, and console is good enough.

I do belive it wants 32MB, since the floppy is compressed, it loads up buffers, etc. I actually sets up a RAM disk and mounts it as root, and all code is executing there. Really kind of cool.

> I noticed that it uses the very stable 2.2.xx kernel.
>What can one get an old 486 for these days... $25, if you can find one?

A friend of mine actually has 7 DEC 486/DX2 machines lying around. We are probably going to set one of them up for him. When I discovered this LRP/LEAF solution, I mentioned to him he might have a market, though he wont' be getting rich :) .

> If you don't even need an HD on it, so that is one less thing to go wrong. One could also have a second floppy in the bay but not plugged in, to use as a quick swap backup if the primary floppy dies. What are they, $10 @ ?
>
>If folks catch on to this the price of 486's are going to skyrocket!
>
>
>One can also install Linux on a more modern box, like a P166 with 64MB of RAM and have it serve a dual purpose, both as a firewall and as a workstation, which is what I do. My wife's 1996 Sony VAIO has a "SuSE Firewall" on it, setup via graphical YaST2 and connected to the internet via a Cicso 657 router acting as a DHCP server. She runs KDE 2 on it, from which she surfs, checks mail or uses Star Office. And while she is doing that, my SuSE 7.3 box and my son's Win95 box are both hitting the internet through her firewall and loosing nothing in speed.
>In the two years this Sony VIAO has been in operation as a server, with it being up 24/7 and months at a time, it has never crashed, nor has KDE 2 crashed.
>JLK
>
>
>>>I have two computers at home on a win2000 peer to peer network.
>>>Can I set up a third computer with Linux and a modem to use as a firewall to connect both win2000 computers to the web?
>>>
>>>TIA
>>
>>Yes. Check out this link: http://lrp.steinkuehler.net. I used this system with no prior experience in Linux and got it going with no problems.
>>
>>There are many upsides, no downsides:
>>1. The firewall can run on a 486. I myself have it running on a P90 w/32Meg of RAM.
>>
>>2. No HDD or CD required. The entire bootable Linux system runs from a floppy. Once you get it the way you want it, you write-protect the floppy. Now, even if a cracker got onto the actual firewall box, there is simply no possible way for them to physically commit any changes to your system. If a cracker did get in and munge your firewall, just reboot and presto! back to the way it should be.
>>
>>3. Various dial-up protocols are well-supported, though I use two ethernet cards for my DSL.
>>
>>4. It is out-of-the box a firewall.
>>
>>5. It supports masquerading out-of-the-box, so your two Win2k machines will be able to use the WWW.
>>
>>6. By changing a few well-documented scripts, you can enable "port forwarding", which allows one of the Win2k machines to be a web server and still be reachable from behind the firewall. though if you are using dial-up, you may have no need for this. I do this to allow a Win2k machine that is behind the firewall to be a web server, and another Linux box behind the firewall to be my mail server.
>>
>>7. Set your Win2k machines up to be DHCP clients and you are in business. They do not know or care that your firewall is not Windows.
>>
>>Hope this helps, good luck!