(reprinted from a recent ProLinux post of mine)

I had the pleasure of installing my first FC2 system the other 
day. I didn't install any GUI, as this is just a perimeter 
firewall system. It is running on a P2/333 with 128 MB Ram and 
a 1.6GB HDD. It has a modem and 2 ethernet cards. The modem 
provides a temporary ppp internet connection until the client 
gets their DSL line installed.

I was able to put this system together from the client's 
boneyard (grab a net card here, a modem there, some memory 
there...), get FC2 downloaded and burned to CD, and installed 
on the system with a secure stealth firewall that lets me 
tunnel in from the outside and only lets certain users browse 
the web, within 10 hours. That is from proposal to delivery. I 
doubt I would have been able to purchase a commercial firewall 
device and get it configured to our needs for the same price, 
and instead of a good chunk of the price going to the hardware, 
I got to keep it all as consulting income. And the client is 
happy because he got to re-use existing hardware.

It has been running solid for 2 days. Amazing how well modern 
versions of the Linux kernel will run on older/modest hardware. 
Clients tend to appreciate reliability, stability, and 
performance.

The client is concerned about leaving the internet connection 
plugged in all the time (the dedicated ppp will rack up phone 
charges needlessly), so I told him that it is completely safe 
to just switch the system off when they go home at night and 
switch it back on in the morning ("You'll hear it dial up, 
after which the Internet will be accessible"). Nothing I've 
ever experienced with Linux leads me to believe this is a false 
statement, although it probably is hard on the disk drives to 
power them down before giving them a chance to seek home.

They have another Linux system (RH 7.2) that has been serving 
their VFP files with Samba with an uptime going on 2 years. I'm 
thinking it is finally time to disband their WinNT Server 
domain controller and put it all on that internal Linux box. I 
wonder if RH7.2 will cleanly upgrade to FC2 - no gui on that 
system either at this point, although it wouldn't hurt to put 
that in for ease of admin when necessary - IOW, the GUI won't 
always be running, just when I log in and issue 'startx'.

This small job, and others like it recently and anticipated in 
the foreseeable future make me think that my huge investment in 
learning Linux and open source over the past 3 years could be 
starting to pay off, both in sanity and pocket change. 
Linux/OSS is just really fun and satisfying to work with.

Recommended new reading: "The Success of Open Source" by Steven 
Weber.

© 2004 Paul McNett       [/Computing/Linux] permanent link