I would definitely recommend Astaro Security Linux http://www.astaro.com . IMO it's the best (most achieved) linux firewall.

Besides the LQ Firewall Distro Wiki (at
http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/..._distributions),
the DistroWatch 'Linux and BSD-based Firewalls and Broadband Routers' site lists&links some of the firewall distro's mentioned above by several thread respondents. Check this out at
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=firewalls

If you are still looking I would check out

http://www.xorp.org/

I just found it and am buring it now to test it out. It seems like it can be made from source or booting using a LiveCD and a floppy (easier). Seems to sound pretty good and I believe it is basd off the BSD's so it should be stable.

I have also tried these already:

Clarkconnect: Big in size. Gives you alot of other features othat than routing and NAT including: Apache webserver, PHP, Snort, and some others. It would be used as a Internet Appliance more than a dedicated firewall/router.

IPCOP: Very good as a router/firewall. Is minialistic in that you wil not have things running that could be comprosimed from an attack.

SmoothWall: Very much the same as ClarkConnect. Very easy to matin like CC, but I found CC had more features I was looking for myself.

Checked out

Coyote Linux: Fits on a floppy. Very basic.

XORP: LiveCD with floppy for config files. Going to check out now.

I am currently running a home server that just as of yesterday has routing capabilites in it nd servers up a subnet of mine with DNS, firewall and NAT. It is a install of Gentoo but almost any basic linux/BSD OS will work. Here is the tutorial at gentoo.org http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/home-router-howto.xml

Gentoo's Doc section also has a lot of well written HOW-TO's in it that can be adpated to any *NIX system.

If you want to learn basic Iptables just about any Distro will work you will just need Iptable's routing support in the kernel.

Eric

Many linux firewall is good. Anyway, is there any linux customized become ipcop firewall, but is a antivirus gateway too? It can
filter linux and windows type of viruses.

Regards

A lot of opinions was mentioned here, but I would like to know, what firewall system is really the most secure, without the request for being easy to configure. What are your opinions?

SV

I wouldlike to thank every one for there personal opinions. I am going to take probably the best so far and that is to read up on a few. i am currently running mandrake 10 but where this is going to be, they dont have any linux experience that i know of. but i was looking at smoothwall. i ran smoothwall about a year and a halh ago. it must be K.I.S.S. Keep it Simple, Stupid. it has to be very small and user friendly, easly upgraded.even a cd based. but i will keep on reading and check them out over the next couple weeks.

Thanks

I use GNU/Linux for about a year. I use ASP Linux, but does it have matter?
I recompile kernel as many times as I power my computer on
I always search any soft or docs through the Internet and download something new,
there for I consider that the main differ (I'm russian and make some errors, please
be patient, I try to write properly and hope you'll be able to understand me) of distros
is packages type. My distributive is based on RPM's, but I have many compiled from
source programs. In diverse distros you can got different file systems and configuration
files, but in common it has the same idea.
Now you can ask which package types are better, but I interest in it myself.

Can anyone say which packages to use?

A suggestion I would make, get yourself a couple of removable hard drive trays, a couple of 1GB hard drives, and install a couple of different firewalls and check them out and see which ones you like.