pfSense

[Tom Metro]

Jarod Wilson wrote:
> Went with this board for multiple reasons:
> 1) supports frequency scaling -- the box scales down to 350MHz, with a
> ceiling of 1.2GHz (which isn't quite clear from the specs)
> 2) dual onboard GbE (I have a 3rd GbE NIC in the PCI slot for DMZ usage)
> 3) via padlock crypto engine

Nice, but a bit heavy weight for a router. Unless you're repurposing old
hardware, the more typical choices are low-power, non-x86 boards, like
the PC Engines hardware the other responder mentioned.


> Well, the board was $99 shipped...and I already had a mini-itx case
> laying around, as well as an old stick of DDR2-667 RAM (512MB[*]) and
> a 20GB SATA laptop drive, so its *almost* sub-$100... :)

Great if you've got the parts in your junk box.

But wouldn't it be nice if you could get something with specs like:

    * CPU: 533MHZ
    * RAM: 128MB
    * Flash: 32MB
    * Ethernet: 5 x Gb ports
    * USB: 2 x 2.0 ports
    * Wifi: B,G,N

with case and power supply for $80? (That happens to be an Asus RT-N16.)

I see some media player appliances are switching to more generic ARM
CPUs instead of proprietary media player chipsets. Maybe the same thing
will happen in the consumer router space, and open up opportunities for
porting other OSs to them.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/