Bootable CD w/OS for firewall

[mvalites at banta-im.com (Matthew Valites)]

> How does a CD based firewall compare to the various firewalls 
> available for the Linksys hardware (ie. sveasoft's offering)? Is it 
> possible to run smoothwall on a Linksys router? I like the idea of a 
> low-power, fanless machine rather than an full blown PC.
>
The linksys routers have mips processors.  I've never used smoothwall, 
but as long as you have the source I don't see why you couldn't cross 
compile it.  However, Sveasoft has put a lot of time and effort into 
their images to specifically run on the linksys boxes.  There are some 
concerns, such as a 5 second window when the linksys box boots up that 
you can tftp new firmware to.  You'd have to figure out how to 
incorporate this into smoothwalls setup (or risk turning your router 
into a doorstop when you flash it incorrectly).  All in all, I'd say it 
doesn't make much sense to do it.  The sveasoft image (Satori v.4) is 
very functional.  I've just recently put it on my WTR54G.  Check out the 
recent linksys article on putting linux on wifi routers (
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7322).

~Matt