Re: Advice / recommendations on Inexpensive Managed Ethernet Switches

[Eike Lantzsch <zp6cge@gmx.net>]

On Thursday, 2 February 2017 11:19:59 PYST rhkramer@gmail.com wrote:
> I'm sending this to the Debian user list first, even though it is probably
> somewhat OT.
> 
> Background: Recently I started monitoring how many packets are going through
> my LAN to my ISP (Earthlink (DSL)).  I have (or maybe had) some thought
> about considering a switch to HughesNet satelite service, which has some
> low limits (before slowdown) on how many bytes you can download per month
> (without looking, I think the limits are like 5, 10, and 15 GB).
> 
Excuse me please for writing this on a Debian list, but ... I see the flame war 
coming ...

I'm using this board
http://www.pcengines.ch/apu1d.htm

and this operating system
https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq6.html#Setup

building a router
https://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/example1.html

and then there are these good books
https://www.nostarch.com/pf3
https://www.nostarch.com/obenbsd2e

I'm a fan of Debian but everything has its use case and I found that OpenBSD 
is far safer and far more straight forward, better documented and better 
maintained  than any Linux distribution ever can be. Linux has another focus, 
which is far wider. OpenBSD limits itself. Mind you: I'm only talking about 
this use case. And yes, there is a certain learning curve. How steep it is 
depends on how versed you are with networks - but then I think that also 
applies to Debian if you set your face on setting up your own router, firewall 
and network flow analyzer. With Debian it will be easier to shoot yourself into 
your knee IMHO.

But you are the judge.

Cheers
Eike