Learning to network w/ Linux on an old PC [closed]

Question

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Leightweight Linux distro to install on my old PC

I am a senior computer science major who is looking to get some practical experience setting up my own network. I live on a college campus and what I would like to do is implement a miniature network in my dorm room. My goal, is to set up the basics of a firewall/ dhcp/ mail server/ maybe DNS in my dorm room. The campus is aware of my plans and I have a static IP Address I can use. The hardware I have to work with (is ancient) is two PIIIs with around 512 Mb of ram. I would like to try to split the work load between them and I am obviously not expecting stellar performance. What are recommendations for a good distro that may run semi-decent on the old PIIIs while still allowing me to implement the functionality I need?

Answer 1

Debian. It'll run on pretty much everything, and 512 megs of ram is plenty.

Answer 2

Pentium IIIs aren't old enough for pretty much any distro to be able to have trouble, and 512MB is a decent amount for a Linux machine that isn't expected to handle Google or Facebook. I'd say put the names of the various distros on a dartboard and have your way. Or pick two distros with varying internals (e.g. Debian and CentOS) and try them both together.

Answer 3

The key to doing network simulations on those devices is User-Mode Linux. This allows you to the Linux kernel as a process on your machine, and each process that you run acts as a device. On each virtual device you can configure something different like firewall capabilities, OSPF, etc. And you can use Linux's virtual bridge (man brctl) to create virtual hubs and switches.

The easiest way to run this is to get a bundle like Marionnet http://www.marionnet.org/EN/download.php which has it all set up along with a GUI to manage it all. Install Debian Lenny on your machines and then configure this repository http://www.marionnet.org/wiki/doku.php?id=documentation:howto:howto_debian_packages to install Marionnet. Or you could just set up UML and then roll your own.

Answer 4

Slackware, if your primary goal is to learn the internals of Linux and networking, not to get the server up and running as soon as possible.

Some people may frown upon, but by using this distribution you will gain some unique experience over time. And it will be much easier to learn the subtleties of other distributions later when you'll need it.