armish systems: good for learning?

[Nico Meijer]

Hi William,

> I would like a small form factor and energy efficiency. I would be
> happy with a slow system, just enough to learn apache, BIND, pf with.

Maybe you could try a (fanless) mini-itx system with a 2.5" hard drive to
make it not too expensive, usable and quiet. Jetway has the J7F4 series
with dual gigabit Realtek (re) lan onboard. VIA boards are less cheap.

There *may* be some issues with these lan cards; see the micro-atx thread
from this month on misc at .

> Are there any supported non-traditional devices that would be
> worthwhile, or would I be better off getting a cheap small form factor
> x86 PC?

Depends on how many hours of free time you have left. I have about 0, so
I choose the easy i386/amd64 path every time.

> Also, am I sensible to desire two NICs? Seems like a good way
> to practice routing, rather than using a boring one interface system
> that "just works."

For sure!

Good luck and have fun... Nico