“Computers have come a long way since the first IBM PC in 1981.
In less time than it takes to age a fine wine, the latest PC
processor has become over 200 times faster then its
great-grandfather, the 8086. But yesterday’s technology does not
have to be tomorrow’s door stop. Through the power of Linux, you
can make use of that 486 you have buried in the closet….”
“The 486 makes a perfect firewall/router/IP-masquerading
machine. The Linux Router Project (LRP) has created a GNU/Linux
distribution that runs from a single floppy. Even without a
hard drive, you can run a full router configuration. This works
best with two good network cards and at least 16 MB of memory.”
“There are a couple of variations of LRP. FreeSCO is Linux
based, but is not based on the LRP distribution. FreeSCO has a very
nice setup menu, good documentation, and the ability to act as a
small-load FTP and Web server. Coyote Linux is based on the LRP
distribution, adding a user-friendly disk creation utility and
support for PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE) which allows it to work with
DSL connections.”