Freesco or smoothwall? (free router software)

[Joony]

what do you guys prefer?

 

[Thoreau]

Depends on what you need. If you want box that can do some pretty advanced routing, tie in dialup backup, even support remote dil-in (out of the box) freesco is great. Freesco, however, is not the easiest to set up or configure, and to my knowledge does not yet provide a web based interface for administration.

Smoothwall on the other hand, which I have been using for about a year now, takes about 5 minutes to set up, has a decent web interface which makes administration easy, and does everything your typical cable/dsl router can do. Port forwarding, DMZ (a TRUE DMZ, not that crap that linksys and netgear call a DMZ), logging, etc.

That said, I would vote for Smoothwall. Note: stick to the 1.0 series until 2 is out of beta. I may just be paranoid, but I wouldn't trust my network to beta software.

 

[FoBoT]

i don't like smoothwall


i currently run freesco at work to connect many pc's to a dsl line

i also like to use ClarkConnect at home ClarkConnect

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: Thoreau
...does not yet provide a web based interface for administration.

freesco does have a rudimentary web interface , it runs on port 82 IIRC

 

[Thoreau]

Originally posted by: FoBoT

Originally posted by: Thoreau
...does not yet provide a web based interface for administration.

freesco does have a rudimentary web interface , it runs on port 82 IIRC

I guess it's been a while since I've messed with FreeSCO. That ClarkConnect one looks kinda interesting, I may tinker with it a bit to see how it stacks up to Smoothwall in terms of features and stability/speed.

 

[vi edit]

I'm a freesco fan. But not really caring for the interface on the latest release. I like the old one better. Oh and I freaked out the first time it started playing the music when it first booted up. Gah!

 

[hevnsnt]

Have you guys seen Mandrake MNF?

They used to have it available for d/l, don't know if they still do.. I really like it.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

You just need a custom web front end for it.

Edit - The crappy uptime is a result of the power outage last night due to blizzard.

- M4H

 

[Electric Amish]

I used Freesco before I bought a router. Setup was pretty easy and it worked flawlessly after setup.

 

[TheToOTaLL]

I'd have to go with smoothwall, since that's what IPCop is.... works great on my P75 with 2 NICs, with EXCELLENT uptime

 

[EyeMWing]

I have a few Freesco boxen kicking around (Though I don't use them for routing. That distro makes a nice HTTP server, as well)

Configuration requires a rudimentary knowledge of your internet setup - easy enough for anyone that's been paying attention enough to know that a router does not necciserily come in a box marked 'LINKSYS'

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: hevnsnt
Have you guys seen Mandrake MNF?

They used to have it available for d/l, don't know if they still do.. I really like it.

i tried it about a year or so ago, at the time , it had some neato graphing that other didn't , but these days many of them have the weblogs and junk

p.s. how is this a "software" topic?

seems to me its either networking (freesco and smoothwall are primarily routers) or operating system (they both are specialized linux distros