From: LangaList Plus Text Edition 2002-04-22 9) Good Uses For Ancient Hardware Kelly Carson writes: I recently acquired a 486 comp for $10, it has a 82mb hard drive, 4mb Ram, a 5-1/4" and a 3-1/2" floppy drives. It currently is running Windows 3.1. Any suggestions as to what I could use it for. I have heard that I could use it as a firewall, an internet router, and a print server, but any other suggestions or anybody know links to web pages that describe how to do this stuff. Yes, setting up an old machine as a firewall/router is a great idea: The concept is to install almost nothing on the machine except what's needed to make it boot and connect to the Internet; and then to use a connection-sharing tool that has built-in firewall functions to share that connection. Because only the old system is actually connected directly to the Internet, anyone who manages to hack into it won't find anything of interest, and will probably move on: Your other machines are thus that much safer. Although it doesn't take a lot of horsepower to share an Internet connection, it may be hard to find software that will live happily in just 4MB of RAM. There are some specialty-distributions of Linux that are meant for sharing Internet connections on resource-limited boxes, and you might want to check them out. See, for example, LEAF--- the free Linux Embedded Appliance Firewall--- at http://lrp.steinkuehler.net/ . See also http://www.google.com/search?q=linux+firewall+ram+486 . You can try running Windows, plus a connection-sharing tool, on the old box: It may work, although the boot times will be hideously slow. However, once running, it might be OK, especially if you turn off all firewall logging functions, and just let the PC shuffle data bits coming through the wires: That's not a very difficult job, and even ancient hardware can usually handle it. But if you can find more RAM for the system, even getting to just 16MB, then your options will increase because you'll be able to run almost any version of Win9x (albeit with long boot times), plus more conventional Internet-sharing tools. More info: http://content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/explorer/1999/0927.htm http://content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/explorer/2000/06.htm http://content.techweb.com/winmag/library/1998/0701/ana0006.htm http://content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/explorer/1999/1122.htm Bryan

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So you wanna make a router huh? How about one that will use a PC and will boot from a floppy? Yes, a full router that will fit from a single BOOT floppy. You do NOT need a HD to make this work (but it would work from one if you wanted). What you need to do is visit the LRP or Linux Router Project. GO HERE: http://www.linuxrouter.org/

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