Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Basic device for a Gentoo router/firewall?

[Stroller]

On 22 May 2010, at 22:41, Grant wrote:

> Does anyone know of a basic device that would function well as a
> Gentoo router/firewall?  Using typical hardware seems like overkill.
> I should be able to offload package compilation duties to another
> local machine on the network.  It would also be nice if it were small,
> cheap, and power-efficient.

I believe stuff like this <http://www.routerboard.com/pricelist.php?started_from_home=1 
 > is really common on the Athens network, but it all appears to be  
MIPS. I would imagine that, rather than run Gentoo MIPS, one would use  
something like Openembedded, although searching for the name of that I  
was reminded of Gentoo Embedded, which might be ideal.

One used to be able to get 486 / 586 boards of similar form-factor,  
but I have no idea if you still can. Cross-compiling using distcc is  
probably a PITA, and I believe x86 is less power-efficient than MIPS  
or ARM, but I don't know by how much. An Atom based board might be the  
best compromise if you want to use "real Gentoo" - the problem with  
anything else is that you have to learn to use / build a specialist  
router-distro if you want to do anything extra-ordinary with it.

Stroller.