[plug] ADSL: Hardware Gateways vs Linux

[Craig Ringer]

Onno Benschop wrote:

>>It's also less problematic if/when a device dies. To top it off, you can 
>>get much better security. Quad port ethernet cards are an option if 
>>you're building a Mini-ITX firewall, otherwise 3 or 4 basic NICs will do 
>>the job nicely.
> 
> While your conclusion is correct, I should point out that the failure
> rate of the system as a whole is likely higher with more devices,
> because each can fail on its own and the whole system is borked anyway.
> So from a reliability perspective this is worse than a single device.

Good point.

> Having said that, if this is a home, who cares?

You might be surprised how annoying it is to have the other resident(s) 
call at inconvenient times asking for remote diagnostics and/or a 
walkthrough fix. You also may well not be, given your line of work.

--
Craig Ringer