Hardware Buying Considerations

[Michael Tremer <michael.tremer@ipfire.org>]

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I have edited the wiki a bit and removed large parts in the hardware section.

Although this email is about documentation, I would like to have the dev’s opinions first before I pass this page on to the doc team.

Please read this:

  https://wiki.ipfire.org/hardware/considerations

This is an article that should give people some guidance on what to buy. Or rather what not to buy.

I do not want to recommend - at all - any specific hardware here, because that dates very very quickly and still does not work for everyone. What I would rather like to achieve is that everyone is asking themselves the correct questions before they purchase something.

I am too tired of people buying - often cheap - stuff that simply does not work and they will end up unhappy with. Hopefully we will make the experience better for them and us by getting fewer questions like these.

So what I have changed in the content is this:

* I am no longer recommending to have a HWRNG. I consider them pointless and potentially rather harmful than helpful.

* I am recommending to think about security first. That means Intel is becoming a difficult buy, but I do not give any solutions either.

* People really buy oversized machines. I have seen firewalls with 256G of RAM using about 1. What a waste of resources.

* I assume that accelerated AES is now the default.

* And finally, I put an emphasis on the network interfaces. It over-simplifies things quite a bit, but I think it is still more important to think about those than having the latest i7 processor.

Please let me know your thoughts or where I am absolutely wrong.

Best,
-Michael