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Ask Slashdot: Can You Roll Your Own Home Router?

"My goal is to have a firewall that I trust," writes Slashdot reader eggegick, "not a firewall that comes from the manufacture that might have back doors." I'm looking for a cheap mini PC I can turn into a headless Linux-based wireless and Ethernet router. The setup would be a cable modem on the ...

johnnys believes "any old desktop or even a laptop will work.... as long as you have a way to get a couple of (fast or Gigabit) Ethernet ports and a good WiFi adapter... " Cable or any consumer-grade broadband doesn't need exotic levels of throughput: Gigabit Ethernet will not be saturated by any such connection... You can also look at putting FOSS firewall software like DD-WRT or OpenWrt on consumer-grade "routers". And you don't necessarily need to roll your own with iptables: There are several BSD or Linux-based FOSS distributions that do good firewall functionality. Long-time Slashdot reader Spazmania agrees the "best bet" is "one of those generic home wifi routers that are supported by DD-WRT or OpenWrt."

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