*BSD News Article 53828


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From: lisac@poi.net (Lisa Collars)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc
Subject: Re: Advice on Internet gateway.
Date: 2 Nov 1995 06:33:19 GMT
Organization: Honolulu, Hawaii
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In article <713503807wnr@prodata.demon.co.uk>, Mark@prodata.demon.co.uk 
says...
>
>Greetings all,
>        I have been asked to set up an internet gateway, and to evaluate 
BSDI 
>for the job. Basically all I need to know is:
>1. Are there any other contenders worth considering as well as BSDI?
>2. Is it fairly painless to set up?
>Any other opinions or comments for my evaluation would be most 
>appreciated.
>
>Many thanks....
>
>Mark.

BSD/OS is certainly the easiest to get going - as well as cheapest. 
However there are a lot of other things to consider, i.e. user loads, 
applications, and hardware. I just did a BSD/OS install for an ISP that
went pretty painless compared to the previous job (SVR4.2 on Intel), 
and indeed was a cinch. 

What are your needs ??? Consider that more advanced apps such as Java 
are not yet ported to BSD/OS as well as most commercial net management
packages, leaving you behind when it comes to hard core internet stuff.
On the other hand most good free stuff has been ported to BSD - so that 
it is much easier to install and configure/customize. It is pretty 
stable for an Intel UNIX as well IMHO.

If your just starting out as a small mom 'n pop ISP or light load gateway
for a small LAN (50-100 users standard stuff) and no firewall BSD/OS
is probably the best pick.

Also consider a used Sun box running Solaris - about same price.

Cheers

Brett Collars
EPOCHSYS Internet Services
Honolulu, HI