In a few months my parents might be replacing their old 1.4ghz dell 8200 with a newer machine, which means once thaey transition all theie r data off the two hard drives on the machine I will tacke possession of itIwill up date the specs later..


The specs of the computer in question are as follows

Processor: P4 @ 1.89 GHZ
Ram: 512MB
primary ide master: Maxtor 53073U6 80GB
Primary ide Slave: Maxtor 6L080L6 30GB
Secondary ide Mster: Nec NR7900A Cd R+RW/Dvd ROM COMBO
Secondary ide Slave: Ricoh CD-R?RW MP7083A
Video Card: Nvidea GeForce3 TI 200
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live Value


Which fire wall distribution is best suited for this antiquated hardware?

By "firewall distro" do you mean to say that you will be using this 1.4GHz machine as a hardware firewall, and that such is the only function it should perform, except maybe routing? I don't know about best, but take a look around here, and you'll prolly see something you like.

http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=firewalls

If you mean that you want a distro in which iptables comes well-configured, you have more options than I can list. Basically any major distro.

what applications are you looking to run on the firewall box??

PS: if that's antiquated hardware, then there isn't an adjective to describe my box... =/

Here's a couple I've used. The setup is pretty straight forward and the web interfaces are nice:

http://www.smoothwall.org/

http://www.ipcop.org/

I think I prefer ipcop simply because it's more community oriented. Or at least that was my impression.

You might also look into the BSD's. I know they have a very good community and stack up well against dedicated hardware firewalls.

Actually, I meant to imply that 1.4Ghz was a bit overkill for a hardware firewall.

yeah, i agree, generally speaking... but it really depends on the apps one would run on it, and the kind of load the box will be under... we have no idea how many clients will be using this box... that said, i was referring to the OP, which stated:there's a mention of 1.4Ghz and then 1.89Ghz... both of which don't seem antiquated to me by any means, hehe... anyhow, let's wait and see what exactly it is that flanksteak is planning to run on this box... with that much power one would assume it would be much more than, let's say, netfilter/iptables...

As far as clients there will be four machines connected to my home net work. I plan to use the machine as a samba file sharing server as well seeing as to the fact that it has a total of 110 gigbytes plus anther 60 gigs in 20 gig harddrives that I have collected from verious machines a have dismantaled over the past 5 years. Iam also looking for advice on an add on ATA 66/100 controller card that works under linux. In addtioin I'd also have install webmin for ease of opperation.

From that I'd suggest using a standard distro not a specialized firewall distro. You could look into firewallbuilder to create your iptables scripts:

http://www.fwbuilder.org/

Here's another that may or may not be better:

http://www.shorewall.net/

I used fwbulder a couple of years ago and had success with it, and I'm sure it's only gotten better. I believe you can also configure your firewall from Webmin so if you're going to install that anyway, might be a good idea to give it a try.

i'd also suggest using your favorite generic distro instead of a specialized one... your thing says you use MEPIS, so why not use that?? it's based on ubuntu so i assume it comes with all the packages you need... if you want something more server-ish then Debian would be a good choice for you as it'll be familiar plus it's bound to have packages for ANYTHING you could possibly want...

on the other hand, i'd recommend you stay away from iptables front-ends such as shorewall/fwbuilder/firestarter/etc, if possible... a plain-old iptables script beats any front-end hands down IMHO... of course, just use what's most comfortable for you...

have you checked the HCL for that card you want??