Can You Purchase Switch Hardware Without an OS?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Friday November 17, 2006 @05:20AM from the barebones-hardware dept.

dhahn asks: "I have a project where I'm building a large Linux router (about 40 ports or so). At this point, my only hardware solution is to purchase a box with lots of PCI-ish slots and fill them multi-port ethernet cards. I've looked into currently available solutions and haven't found anything that gives me the control I want. Does anyone know of where I could purchase a 'naked switch?' I just want the switch hardware with enough guts to allow me to customize a Linux OS and load it up." If anyone else has been in this situation, what did you do?

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Re:Buy Used by KingDaveRa · 2006-11-17 06:19 · Score: 0, Redundant

Depends how you define 'router'. These little things we can pick up for next to nothing aren't 'routers' in the truest sense of the word, i.e. those big things full of fans and PSUs that the likes of Cisco/Extreme/3Com/etc produce.

To be honest, unless I had some incredibly weird requirement, or a strange fetish for building my own kit, I'd go look for a proper router solution. My experience of using a *nix box as a proper, layer-3 LAN router isn't that great. There's something to be said for the custom-designed kit in these routers you can buy.