I've got a cable modem, but started thinking that... I have multiple computers I use for surfing the web. Especially for larger files, it sometimes seems like I could benefit a lot from having a proxy server.

So I'm downloading squid onto a 486. But it's just now occuring to me as I try to download/install stuff... That this machine is SLOW. Even when you login, you can hear the disk spin up. (My desktop machine has a gig of RAM and caches a lot of files in unused RAM. The 486 has 32 MB.) So at what point does it become quicker to download at 3 Mbps again, as opposed to 100 Mbps, but limited by a slow hard drive on an ancient box?

Does anyone have experience running squid on a 486? Is it worthwhile?

A 486 Should work fine, however you may want to look at a distro that does just what you want it to do (Such as coyote linux, smoothwall, or Freesco), They are intended to be run on old, slow machines, and most of them will boot from a floppy. If you choose to roll your own, make sure you turn off any services/programs that you do not plan on using to save system memory. I've seen the older F5 Big IP load balencer boxes, and they were just 486 based systems, many of them are still in use.

Just curious, why do you want to run a proxy, rather than just firewalling your network?

Thanks-
Eli

Well... We have a Linksys firewall, but I want to build my own box to be a 'real' firewall. (The short answer is that I had an extra 486 lying around. :)) The proxy is to try to speed things up locally if I load the same page on different computers.

I recommend Freesco.

Its a bit old and outdated, but for a floppy-based firewall and router it really impresses.

I essentially learned linux initially from my freesco install. Ahh memories!

*tear*

Can you explain a proxy?

Freesco.. i wanna see it.. whats the URL? :)

Works great. :)

http://www.freesco.org/

Originally posted by JackMitchell
Freesco.. i wanna see it.. whats the URL? :)

I highly recomment Freesco for the linux user that has allready had an introduction to linux, For total linux beginners, coyote linux is a better way to go... just a bit easier to configure.

How much would squid improve performance on a small network? I mean, are you going to have all your machines visiting the same pages?

And for a more complete distro, Slackware and Debian also work well on older hardware

approx. how big is the HDD needed for Freesco? :) Can it run under windows (umlwin32 or something similar)

I've been thinking about giving Astaro Security Linux (http://www.astaro.com/php/statics.php?action=asltechhard&lang=gb#tech) a try lately.. But it might be a bit much for your 486 and you prolly don't need all the security features it offers.. But still quite a nice package...

You dont even need a HDD at all to use Freesco.

I have mine running on a 486-SX 25mhz, 16 megs Ram, and 129mb HDD.

I only use the HDD install for extra packages, etc.

The default install of both freesco and coyote just boots from a floppy drive. It is not a windows program, it's a small linux OS, that needs to be on a dedicated machine.

How many disks does it need? Because the site says its a 2MB file.. (sourceforge download)

It will unpack to a single floppy disk, I'm not sure why it says 2mb, it may be because there are extra packages included with it, The nice thing about it it that it only used the floppy to boot from, once it's up, the firewall runs completely from memory.

There are extra drivers and such that come with the file.

Originally posted by JackMitchell
How many disks does it need? Because the site says its a 2MB file.. (sourceforge download)

I'm running Debian Linux. It works fine, I just haven't configured it to be a proxy yet. The question was whether or not it was a waste of effort to have a slow system be a (caching) proxy or not. Can't hurt to try, though. :)