Robert Storey wrote:
A Linux-based firewall is probably good enough for the average home hobbyist, but in a professional environment it doesn't pay to "save money" by recycling an old PC with Linux installed in place of a router. regards, Robert
That's a silly thing to say when you consider that many hardware based firewalls out there are ARM processors running customized Linux OSes (or some BSD OS) on them.
I'm not certain what you mean by "professional environment". I tend to read that as an implication that these recycled old PC's with Linux is delegated to wanna-be's and basement hackers.
If you consider that something like smoothwall is a free open source product intended for use by "recycling old PC's with Linux" and is also used as a hardware based firewall appliance sold by the parent company smoothwall.com then your statement gets even sillier.
Most, NOT all, companies would be able to use this method of "recycling old PC's with Linux installed" and they would save themselves a ton of money and no one would be able to tell the difference.
Considering that these products do more than just a router, they might be able to tell the difference, but not in a bad way.
-- Do you guys know we just passed thru a BLACK HOLE in space?