Candidate hardware

(This may may not make sense without reference to the requirements list.)

The following summaries are from specs from the web.

I don't have direct experience with these machines except the ASUS Mini-NLX SP98-N.

NetWinder

Corel's StrongARM-based Linux boxes are "cool". They are very small and somewhat quiet. They support two Ethernets (one 10, one 10/100) along with the usual collection of standard ports.

The price killed it. $1000 for a base system, even with a 2G hard drive thrown in, was out of my price range.

Cobalt Qube

Cobalt Micro's MIPS-based Linux boxes are also very "cool". They're quiet and small.

The RaQ has a single 10/100 Ethernet and no PCI slots---it lost right there.

The Qube 2700WG has a 10Mbps Ethernet and a PCI slot, so it could do the job, but it lost on price---starting at $1300. The 2700D mentioned on that page is presumably a 2700WG without the workgroup software, and it costs $1000.

The Qube 2 is a new product. It has two 10/100 Ethernets and a PCI slot. That's perfect hardware for this job, and the literature advertises NAT as a feature. The website doesn't list a price, but it presumably costs substantially more than the 2700WG.

PC/104 and industrial computers

An obvious way to win on the size/noise requirement.

I couldn't find many web pages that quoted prices, and the best that I found didn't encourage me---$600-800 list price, with a bunch of mandatory add-ons to get a working box.

I don't have enough experience with these kinds of machines to gauge what realistic pricing in the quantity 1-2 range would be.

I'd love to hear from people who are more experienced with these kinds of systems.

MSI Concerto NetPC

The Concerto II (part MS-5202) is a CPU-less, RAM-less Socket 7 box with integrated SiS 5597 VGA, sound, and Intel eepro100 10/100 Ethernet. The 12.5"x3.3"x14.5" (WxHxL) chassis supports one exposed 3.5" and one exposed 5.25" bay; presumably there's a hidden 3.5" bay for a hard drive. Expansion is 1 ISA, 1 PCI/ISA shared---for three Ethernets, one of the adapters will be ISA.

This product appears to be available from the usual suspects on pricewatch.com and shopper.com in the $180-200 range, but inventories seem low.

Two models of the Concerto III (parts MS-6201 and 6202) are similar systems with Slot 1 440EX and BX chipsets, and ATI video.

The newer Concerto III MS-6204 is a 440BX motherboard in a slightly smaller (11.2"x3.3"x13.2") case. The picture seems to show the 5.25" half-height bay has been replaced with a slimline laptop CDROM bay.

If I recall correctly, the Concerto IIIs I saw were around $100 more expensive than the II.

Compaq Presario 2286

One of the cheapest major-brand computers out there. In a nutshell: Cyrix MII/333, 32M, 4G, 32X half-height CDROM, PCI WinModem, keyboard, mouse. Only one serial port. $600 at CompUSA or Staples.

Small chassis, quoted as 4.02"x13.85"x15.66" (HxWxD). Note that the picture on the web page does not reflect what I've seen in the stores---the real case is smaller and has more exposed bays.

The WinModem fills one of the two PCI slots (which are apparently limited to 8"x4" cards); it presumably could be ripped out in favor of an Ethernet adapter.

The CDROM drive appears to be a standard half-height IDE device, and thus is a candidate for replacement or salvage. The 2286 has an additional exposed 3.5" bay, advertised as the place to stick a LS-120 drive; this bay is actually 5.25" wide on the outside, so it might be possible to install a Quantum Bigfoot 5.25"x1" slimline hard drive behind it---can anyone confirm this?

The integrated video steals 4M of system memory for a 2M framebuffer, like the SiS 559x chips. Is that the chipset in this machine?

The 2286 lost on the "three Ethernets" goal. Some people may prefer buying an assembled, mass-marketed box from a local retail outlet. $600 isn't rock-bottom, but you could perhaps salvage the hard drive, keyboard, mouse, or the 98 license to make up for it. Maybe give the WinModem to your aunt.

emachines etower

Not really a contender because of the tower form factor, although it's a rather short tower.

The emachines product line has various processors, 32M, integrated ATI video, integrated sound, 2-4G hard drives, 24X CDROM, the usual throwaway WinModem, keyboard, mouse. Expansion is 1 PCI, 1 PCI/ISA, 1 ISA, and there is an open external 5.25" HH bay.

There's more technical info in their support faq, and emachines makes positive noises about Linux support there.

Prices are in the $400-$500 range, and I've seen them stocked at Staples. Could be a good machine to part out.

MicroATX towers and desktops

Placeholder section---still chasing down links. They're all a bit larger than I'd like, but the high integration and low price on most motherboards may make them a good buy. Haven't seen any with embedded Ethernet yet, but most could have three PCI ethernet cards installed.

Enlight's cases seem typical; 7.1"x13"x13" minitower and 14.9"x18.0"x5.1" desktop. One or two exposed 5.25" bays, one exposed 3.5" bay, two internal 3.5" bays.

ASUS Mini-NLX systems

ASUS's case manufacturing label, Elan Vital, sells the B-5N Mini-NLX case. It's 3.3"x11"x13.6" (HxWxD) and designed to accept ASUS's Mini-NLX motherboards.

Non-ASUS NLX motherboards may not fit in this housing, and the NLX riser for this case ships with the ASUS motherboards.

The case has an exposed 3.5" bay, an internal 3.5" HH hard drive bay, and a slimline laptop CDROM bay. The slimline CDROM drives are hard to find and expensive. The best prices I've seen are ~$110.

The standard ASUS riser has 1 PCI, 1 PCI/ISA slots. Some ASUS motherboards have integrated Ethernet, which could bring us to the goal of three PCI 10/100 Ethernet adapters. With only two, the extra slot could be used for an M-Systems ISA flash disk (apparently less expensive than their IDE flash disk). Another use is for an internal modem to fail-over to dialup networking---some people like internal modems in some setups to reduce clutter. I hear Sangoma sells a nice T1 card although I'm not sure the integrated CSU/DSU model will fit....

Cabling inside the case is tight. The motherboards ship with an extremely short IDE cable meant just to reach the hard drive. The floppy bay is far enough away to require a longer cable to be able to hook up an IDE-based LS-120 floppy drive, and having both an LS-120 and a HD may be very difficult to cable.

All the cases I've physically seen have had the ventilation holes in the top and left side of the case; that seems to indicate that stacking them could be a ventilation problem. I haven't seen the pictured air pipe (perhaps it ships with the Slot 1 motherboards). I'm still looking for a source of the side plate and the brackets to mount the case upright.

There is no internal speaker.

The case sells in the $50 range from pricewatch/shopper.com vendors.

ASUS SP98-N

This is the motherboard I bought. Socket 7 (up to 83MHz), integrated SiS 5598 video, integrated sound, two serial, one parallel. Optional integrated Intel eepro100 10/100 Ethernet.

The SiS 5598 video steals system RAM for the framebuffer. The BIOS has settings for 1, 2, or 4M stolen. I haven't tested, but I suspect high-resolution high-refresh video modes decrease system performance. XFree86 3.3.3 works, but I wouldn't want to drive a huge monitor off it---I'm spoiled by the video quality of the Matrox G200.

I haven't checked whether Linux supports DMA through this chipset's IDE controller. Not an issue for a router.

pricewatch/shopper.com quote ~$160 for the with-lan version, but most of their vendors are also out of stock and/or backordered.

I bought an SP98-N with-lan, B5 case, Cyrix MII-300, floppy drive, 32M PC100 SDRAM from Chili Pepper Computers for $400 including shipping a few weeks ago. They appear to be out of stock on several of those items now, but they seem like a nice vendor to do business with.

By the way, motherboard jumper settingsfor the Cyrix MII-300GP are hidden in this faq entry.

ASUS P2L-N

Socket 1, 440LX chipset, limited to 66MHz bus. Integrated audio, ATI video (no memory stealing). No integrated Ethernet. Boring, unless you already have a Celeron you're not planning to overclock.

pricewatch/shopper.com say ~$160.

ASUS P2B-N

Socket 1, 440BX chipset, with 66/100MHz bus, and jumper settings all the way up to 133MHz. Integrated audio, ATI video, and eepro100 10/100 Ethernet.

This looks like a good choice for machines that need more power than the SP98-N has, or for boxes that may someday sit on someone's desk---the video should be snappy and decent quality.

pricewatch/shopper.com say ~$240, and the listed vendors have it in stock.

Laptops

Cheap laptops start at around $1000 new. Add two PCMCIA Ethernet cards (~$80 each for 100BaseT, 10BaseT cheaper).

Depending on laptop model, getting LRP set up with proper PCMCIA drivers could be a huge pain. There's a small but non-zero chance you'll never get PCMCIA drivers to work for any particular laptop.

My cheap laptop, a CTX EzBook 750CS, generates vast amounts of heat. It's passively cooled, so proper positioning and clearance would be a must for it to survive more than a few hours powered on. Worse, the heatpipe from the CPU does a great job of transmitting heat into the top PCMCIA card, which then conducts into the bottom PCMCIA card. This scares me.

I don't know about the cooling properties of other laptops, especially if they're in active 24x7 use. Comments welcome.

Multiport Ethernet cards

(this section is a placeholder)

I looked at dual and quad Ethernet cards. They're priced as "server" components---the cheapest dual I saw was ~$250.

Dedicated network hardware

There are cheap boxes available that work just as firewalls or routers. (I hear that some people refer to dedicated routers as "routers" but what's the fun in using them?)

Sonic Systems sells a line of "Firewall Applicances". Quick feature list: stateful packet inspection, NAT, content filtering (apparently a web filter with a subscription to a blacklist), a ~$500 IPsec VPN option, and Web-based configuration. $400 for 10 nodes, $800 for 50, $1200 for unlimited, and $1500 for unlimited with an extra Ethernet port for a DMZ.

A lot of companies sell modems or ISDN TAs that connect to Ethernet (sometimes with an integrated hub) via NAT. I've seen prices start at around $200 (needs external modem) and up.

Bay Networks (well, Nortel Networks) has a line of BayStack Instant Internet products that look interesting---some of them support a second Ethernet port. NECX quotes $580 for the 33.6kbps modem version. I'll look more at this later.

Jay Carlson -- nop@nop.com

Last updated Feb 15, 1999; prices and availability last checked Feb 14, 1999.