> I use a much better supported system called Debian. It did
> require me to spend a bit more on the firewall hardware, but on
> the other hand it is tremendously speedy and configurable.
I like this option as well, but I find it hard to come across
suitable hardware. I need:
- ≥2 ethernet ports
- acceptable wifi (i.e. not a wifi dongle)
- DSL modem
- 2TB hard disk
- audio output
- USB (for printer)
and it shouldn't use up significantly more than an average of about 10W
while doing mostly nothing 24/7.
In the past, I've used a DSL modem + banana-pi (one of the ethernet was
replaced by a USB cable on the OTG port) and it kind of worked except
for the wifi part which kinda sucked. Also it's fairly difficult to
find good DSL modems in my experience (and they're not supported by any
Free distribution like Debian, OpenWRT, ... so you're stuck with
a proprietary OS). The upside was that almost everything happened on
the banana-pi running Debian.
Nowadays I use a BT HomeHub 5 together with the banana-pi. The DSL and
wifi work a lot better (as well as the real ethernet port instead of the
`gether` USB widget). It draws a bit more power than my old DSL-modem
and uses OpenWRT rather than Debian, but it's otherwise a much
better solution.
Stefan
