Dave Kleist wrote:
> 
> Quick question:
> 
> Something in my feeble brain seems to remember reading something about
> using two identical NIC cards in a box makes it more difficult to set up a
> firewall.  Is this right or am I just mishmashing stuff in my brain?
> 

Sometimes similar NICs try to use the same hardware resources (IRQ, IO,
etc.) because they usually are set to some default. This was mainly a
problem with ISA PNP cards without jumpers to set. Different brands of
NICs usually used different resources by default so it was easier to
setup. If you have the same PNP NICs, you usually have to run some DOS
utility to change the HW resources, or use isapnp.


> As an aside, the box is a 486, and I'll be picking up two ISA NIC cards,
> retail -- not my money, my employers-- probably the Dlink DE220 PCT cards
> since I don't think I saw any others on the shelf.  I'm also going to take
> a stab at installing Debian though it does not look like the net install
> will be that bad, probably have more problems with creating the floppies
> than anything else.

You're right. Installing Debian via the net was probably one of the
easiest things I've ever done.